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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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AKE GEORGE 



IN HISTORY. 




By Elizabeth Egglestoe See'jye, 

Author of, "The Story of Washington," "The Story of 

Columbus," "The Life of Tecumseh," "The Life of 

Pocahontas," "The Life of Brant and Red 

Jacket," "The Life of Montezuma," &c., &c. 

TOGETHER WITH A 

Historical Map of the Lake Qeorge Region 

AND A GUIDE TO BATTLEFIELDS AND OTHER POINTS 
OF INTEREST IN THE EASTERN PART OF 

THE ADIRONDACK MOUNTAINS. 

PRICE, TEN CENTS. 

Siished by ELWYN SEELYE, Lake George, N. Y. 
■^YRIGHTED 1896 BY THE AUTHOR. 



AVED! 



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We have saved the people who 
deal with us man}/ a dollar, and the 
goods are well known to be the best 
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enough to give you an idea. Other 
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Cheapest Place to Trade in Warren County! 

Mail oiders will receive prompt attention. 

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Comiteots, 

A GREAT WATER PATHWAY 
THE MAKING OF LAKE GEORGE 
THE INDIANS OF LAKE GEORGE 
THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE 
THE NAMING OF LAKE GEORGE 
LAKE GEORGE A WARPATH 
A CANOE EXPEDITION. 
THE PATH OF PEACE MESSENGERS 
ENGLISH ADVANCE TO LAKE GEORGE 
THE FRENCH AT TICONDEROGA. 

THE MARCH ON FORT EDWARD 
UP THE ROAD TO LAKE GEORGE 
A BLOODY MORNING SCOUT 
BATTLE OF LAKE GEORGE 
BLOODY POND FIGHT. 
BARON DIESKAU'S DANGER 
HOLDING LAKE GEORGE 
SCOUTING ON LAKE GEORGE 
A WINTER SIEGE OF FT. WM. HENRY 
MONTCALM ON LAKE GEORGE 
SIEGE O - FORT WILLIAM HENRY 
FALL OF FORT WiLLiAM HENRY 

MASSACRE OF LAKE GEORGE. 
BATTLE OF ROGERS' ROCK. 
ROGERS' SLIDE. 

BATTLE OF TICONDEROGA 
PUTNAM'S ADVENTURE. 
LAST SCENES OF THE FRENCH WAR 
ABOUT LAKE GEORGE. 
ETHAN ALLEN AT TICONDEROGA 
BEN FRANKLIN ON LAKE GEORGE 
BATTLE OF DIAMOND ISLAND 
EARLY VISITORS AT LAKE GEORGE 
POINTS OF HISTORIC INTEREST 
ON AND ABOUT LAKE GEORGE 



A GREAT WATER PATHWAY. 



s-^^'-^^ P l^fe' li&s:^ ^^^^ George and Lake Champlain 
^^^^^U Wi 3fc-"L are two great links between 
" /^^/m W\ //W^ ^^^ waters of the St. Lawrence 
•^^rz:^'~Mir-4^^^ system and the Hudson Eiver. 

^^^^^^i^^^^t^^"!^ Before the invention of the 
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ railway nothing could be more 
important than such a water route. Until the intermin- 
able forests had been cleared and roads built there was 
no other means of traversing the continent, and even 
then the waterways remained the only practicable 
route for moving cannon, heavy stores and merchan- 
dise, while man himself could travel much more 
easily, cheaply and swiftly by water. 

Here then for untold ages Indian war parties came 
and went. At this gateway between two lands 
English and French struggled for the possession of a 
continent. Here England descended upon her rebel- 
lious colonies and strove to cut them jn twain ; and 
the sturdy northern farmers first showed their power 
to resist the veteran troops of the Old World. 

Before the building of the Champlain canal an 
infant trade flowed through these waters, and travel- 
ers sought this route between the United States and 
Canada. No part of the country is richer in histori- 
cal interest; no other American waters have seen so 



4 
many armies pass up and down them, gay with the 
brilliant costumes of an old world and a past age. 

THE MAKING OF LAKE GEORGE. 

Lake George lies at the eastern edge of the Adiron- 
dack mountain system, which is one of the oldest on 
our continent, being formed of archaic rock which 
rose above the sea long before the most of North 
America ceased to be ocean floor. The rains and 
frosts of immensely long ages have very much 
reduced the height of these mountains and worn 
them down to their present rounded outlines. 

It is a curious fact that Lake George, the southern 
end of which is almost enclosed in a loop of the Hud- 
son, should empty its waters into the St, Lawrence. 
Dr. G. Frederick Wright has recently discovered that 
before the Glacial Age Lake George did not exist. The 
original watershed of the St. Lawrence and the Hud- 
son rivers he finds to lie across the Narrows of Lake 
George ; and here two streams took their rise, one of 
which ran northward to Lake Champlain and the 
other southward through Dunham's bay to the Hud- 
son. During the Glacial Age tlie face of this country 
w^as covered with a slowly moving sheet of ice to the 
height of some hundreds of feet, which carved and 
shaped the bed of Lake George, and deposited as it 
melted, great quantities of sand and gravel, or clay, 
both to the north of Baldwin, where one stream 
had formerly found its way into Lake Champlain, 
and at the head of Dunham's Bay marsh, where the 
other had taken its course to join the Hudson. 

These hills of glacial drift dammed back the waters 



of the brawling iiiountiiiii brooks and made a lake of 
what was once a rugged valle\^ — a lake which found 
its only outlet across t)ie rocks at Ticonderoga. 

THE INDIANS OF LAKE GEORGE 

Lake George and Lake C'haniplain, forming a nat- 
ural warpath between tlie St. Lawrence and the Hud- 
son, the shores of Lake George were not a safe dwell- 
ing place for savages, and it is probable that for ages 
they had seen few inhabitants other than an occas- 
ional group of famished fishermen who sought such 
spots as Dunham's Bay Creek, in the spring, to spear 
the myriads of fish which flocked to its warmer 
waters during the spawning season. 

As far back as we know the Iroquois Indians held 
undisputed sway on these waters, and by means of 
them made their warlike descents upon the natives 
of Canada. Other savages only ventured on Lake 
George to steal into the countr}' of the Iroquoie to 
deal them some revengeful blow. 

The Iroquois, or Five Nations, were a confederacy 
of Indian peoples of one race, whose villages lay in a 
line across New York State from the mouth of the 
Mohawk River to Lake Erie. Unlike many other 
tribes, they fortified their towns with some skill and 
did not depend on the hunt alone for food, but raised 
corn, which they buried for use in the Winter. They 
were inveterate warriors and they had attained per- 
haps as great a degree of advancement as was possible ' 
on a continent where, north of Mexico, there were 
no spots in' which an infant civilization might de- 



6 
velop in comparative freedom from warlike inroad?^. 
Situated Avhere they commanded the Great Lakes, 
the St. Lawrence, Lake George and Lake Champlain, 
tlie Moliawk and the Hudson, a vast system oi natur- 
al water courses, the terror of their inroads was felt 
in the Ohio Valley, a-nong tlie Indians of Illinois, in 
Canada, and so far eastward that the n.atives of New 
England drew in close to the seaboard, shndderingly 
telling their white neighbors, "Mohog (Mohawk) all 
devil." 

THE DISCOVERY OF LAKE GEORGE. 

Ghamplain, the typical soldier-explorer of his day, 
a man whose gaze was fixed on the dawn of a great 
commercial age, seeking in the water courses of 
North America for a western route to China and the 
spice islands of the Orient, narrowly missed being 
the discoverer of Lake George. 

During the first year after the founding of (Quebec, 
having heard from the Indians of a lake of great size 
and beauty, in which were many fair islands, he 
joined a war party of Canadian Indians, bent on 
attacking the Mohawks in their home on the river of 
that name. To the Indians Lake George and Lake 
Champlain w^ere one, the latter "the door of the 
country," and the former, Andiatorocte, or, "there 
the water closes," an allusion to the falls in the 
stream of the outlet, around which they w^ere obliged 
to carry their canoes. It happened that the Canadian 
Indians were met on Lake Champlain by an Iroquois 
war party, where the battle took place instead of on 



the Mohawk, and Lake George remained unknown 
for thirty-two years longer, when it was the lot of 
Father Jogiies, a suffering and captive Jesuit,and tAvo 
young Frenchmen, his disciples, to be the first wliite 
men to look upon this beautiful sheet of water. 

Though the French excelled in the management of 
the Indians, it chanced that by their friendly alliance 
with the natives of Canada they found themselves 
embroiled with the most powerful savages on the 
continent. The Iroqu'ois, who had first fled in terror 
from the firearms of Champlain, had bided thei)' 
time, and when by their trade with the Dutch at 
Albany they had become possessed of a number of 
these desirable engines of war, the more western 
Iroquois fell with redoubled fury upon the Indians of 
Lake Huron, while the Mohawks glided up the Hud- 
son, Lake George and Lake Champlain to destroy the 
French border settlements, or lay in wait along the 
shores of the St. Lawrence to cut off French trade 
with the Huron s. 

On a morning in the August of 1642 such a war 
party ambushed twelve canoes making their way up 
the St. Lawrence, deeply laden with ammunition, 
guns, kettles, blankets, hatchets and such articles as 
Indians prized and bought with their beaver skins. 
There was 'a short fight, a flight and a pursuit. 
Twenty out of forty of the fugitives were captured, 
and among them was Father Jogues, a gentle Jesuit 
priest, fated to be the unwilling discoverer of Lake 
George. 

He had already been on many perilous missions to 



the Indians of Canada, living in their filthv, sinokv 
huts, trndging, hah'-starved and nearly frozen from 
village to village, hated and suspected as an "okie" 
who might bring disease and ruin with his mysteri- 
ous incantations, often threatened with the 'toma- 
hawk, yet patiently going where his superior ordered 
him. He was thirty-five years old, with slight and 
delicate features, and the tastes of a scholar, though 
he was an enduring runner and could outstrip most 
Indians in this exercise. Witlj him were two young 
lay assistants. Couture and Goupil, bound, like" him, 
to the country of the Hurons on painful missionarv 
labors. 

Jogues and Couture had at first made their escape 
to the rushes on the shore, but the priest had given 
liimself up when he saw Goupil a captive, and Cou- 
ture had done the same on discovering that the good 
father was in the hands of the savages, but not until 
he had first killed an Indian who snapped a gun at 
his breast. In revenge for this act the enraged 
Iroquois gnawed his fingers and pulled out his finger 
nails with their teeth ; and when Father Jogues fell 
upon his friend's neck, at the sight of his sufferings, 
they treated him to the same tortures. 

After knocking in the head a Huron Indian who 
was disabled from walking, but whom Father Jogues 
did not fail to baptize with his mangled hands, the 
triumphant Indians made their way up the Richelieu 
River and Lake Champlain, the prisoners suffering 
greatly by the way from heat, wounds and mosquit- 
oes. At the southern end of Lake Champlain they 



"terwards scorched their vvoundoi bodies « h 
fire atd a„„.ed themselve. .vheu then- PJ--^^^^^^ 

the cll^t-ing place ar-riconderoga and ea.t .ad eye. 

^K^ ir^vpiv stretches of Lake George. 
"Vlu ,^r vCe ed.ptue lake, left then- bu..ts a, 
i JLlsLewhere near where Fort WiU,.n Henr, 
=^ftervvards stood, and took their way to then ^home 



„„ the Mohawk. Here the captives were carried . 

;™ph fronr town to town running «- g-mlet^ a^ 
each fresh stopping Place- 'a narrow oadPa,a 



dise.r;X:^eaUe<Ut-.,d.^^^^ 

rr;::%r'cL:n:rs-:ft:eWnch.nen's 

•eL o ex cited the snperstitions fears of the savages 
andlh:; ton.ahawked Gonpil *or -naking U;e sign o 
the cross on the forehead of a child. Couture the> 
actoPted because tliev admired hiin for his courage ui 
"Stn. Ws man ai the moment of his cairture ; l>u 
o^Fatl^rJogues,who could not h""'. -1-;™^^ 
not eat the meat over which they had pertorn.ed a 

athen ceremony and who spent his fme ..-«o 
to secretlv baptize dying infants, or victims at the 
Itake tL"yhadnouse,andhis Ufe w.is in constant 
citn^;r Once he only escaped a summary death m 
r™ for the rumored loss of a -ar party by his 
abseiiL at a small body of water, probably Saratoga 



10 
Lake, where he and the haif-f ami shed Indian t'amily 
with which he hved sometimes subsisted on frogs 
and the entrails of fish. He was hurried back to the 
Mohawk, where his hfe was only saved by the safe 
arrival of the war party before him. 

At last after nearly a year of captivity he accom- 
panied the Indians on a trading expedition to Albany 
and here kind Dutch people persuaded him to escape, 
hiding him first in a vessel in the river and then in a 
garret and finally paying the Indians a large ransoin 
for him. 

THE NAMING OF LAKE GEORGE. 

Father Jogues made his vtay back to France, where 
he was caressed by gi'eat ladies of the court and the 
Queen kissed his mangled hands. But he returned 
to his labors in Canada, and in 1646 when it was 
rumored that the Iroquois washed to make peace with 
that country, he, who knew their language, was sent 
again into the land of the MohaAvks, with some 
presents for these people. Father Jogues accepted 
this dangerous errand as his duty, and accompanied 
by some Algonquin Indians, he ascended Lake Cham- 
plain once more and crossed the portage at Ticonder- 
oga to Lake George. 

There on a June day the party might be seen 
swiftly paddling up the lake, differing in no way 
from the war parties of past ages except for the refin- 
ed face of the black-robed priest and the lading of 
European goods wliich Jogues carried by way of a peace 



11 

offering. They reached the head of Lake George on 
the eve of the church hoHday known as Corpus 
Chrieti; and for this reason Father Jogues named the 
lovely lake of his discovery Lac St. Sacrement, or 
Lake of the Holy Sacrament; and this name it retain- 
ed for more than a hundred years, in the mouths of 
English as well as French. At the head of the lake 
Father Jogues and his companions Jeft their canoes 
and carrying their peace offerings on their backs to 
the Hudson they borrowed canoes at an Indian fish- 
ing village on this river and descejided it to the Mo- 
hawk towns. They found that there were two parties 
among the Mohawks, one of which wished for peace 
and one was determined on war. Jogues was soon in 
imminent danger from the latter party. Friendly 
Indians warned him to be gone. He had intended, 
if all were favorable, to found a mission among the 
Mohawks, and before his departure he left behind 
him a box containing some useful articles, whicli he 
might need if he returned for this purpose. As the 
Indians were curious he opened the box, and showing 
them what was in it, locked it again. He then 
ascended the Hudson and returned to Lake George, 
where he found his canoes, and so made his way by 
water back to Canada. 

Father Jogues had not been long returned when he 
was ordered by his superior to go back to the Mohawk 
country and found a mission, which was to be called 
"The Mission of the Martyrs." For the fourth and 
last time the Jesuit took his way through the waters 
of Lake George. 

The Indians had grown suspicious of him. They 



12 

fancied that the box which he had left among thein 
contained the pestilence or some other evil. A toma- 
hawk descended on his head one evening as he was 
entering an Indian wigwam, where he had been asked 
to a feast, and thus "the Mission of the Martyrs" was 
sealed with the blood of the gentle discoverer of 
Lake George. 

LAKE GEORGE A WARPATH. 

Long after its discovery by Father Jogues Lake 
George remained a war path, peopled only by fleets 
of canoes propelled by hideously painted savages^ 
stealing forth on their errand of death or hurrying 
homeward laden with spoils and trembling captives. 
During the seventeenth century the Iroquois Indians 
were possessed with a rage for conquest, exterminat- 
ing or pubduing all about them. It was no more than 
the old barbarous drama long enacted in the western 
world, a dreary tale of human suffering and woe, 
hastened on by the introduction of European firearms. 

New York in time became an English province 
and these fierce warriors were the only barrier be- 
tween the English and the French, who vied with 
each other in seeking their trade. North America 
had ceased to be the resort of romantic soldiers 
seeking the gateway to an Old World in the New, 
and had fallen to the lot of shrewd traders and hardy 
pioneers. Canada and New York both aspired to be 
the buyers and sellers of the rich furs of the North- 
west, and both claimed to own the Iroquois country 
from Lake George to Lake Erie. 

So long as colonies of both France and England 



13 

remained side by side in the New World every ambi- 
tious scheme of their princes in Europe was certain 
to throw these infant provinces into war,made doubly 
bitter by the savage allies which each sought to set 
upon the firesides of th« other. For seventy years 
there was strife between the French and English in 
America, broken only by short periods of peace. 
Again and agai :i was the valley of Lake George the 
theatie of this struggle between two great peoples for 
the possession of a continent. 

A CANOE EXPEDITION. 

In the summer of 1690 the English made an effort 
to control the great waterway into Canada, toiling up 
the Hudson in canoes which must be carried around 
the falls and rapids, or marching through the unbroken 
forests on the river bank, their stores loaded upon 
pack hordes, camping at South Bay on Lake Champlain 
only to fail in the end from the lack of provisions, 
lack of harmony and the small-pox. Both French and 
English were as yet too poor and feeble for grand mili- 
tary invasions and the inroad into Canada under the 
leadership of Peter Schuyler, the next year, was a 
more possible attempt. Schuyler, a mayor of 
Albany, much loved by the Indians, who called him 
"Quider," launched a fleet of canoes on Lake George 
in the summer of 1691, manned with about one hundred 
and twenty English and Dutchmen and one hundred 
and forty Mohawks and Mohegans. He ascended Lake 
George and Lake Champlain, slipped by the French 
fort of Chambly, on the Richelieu, marched through 
the woods to La Prairie, opposite Montreal, took twice 



14 
lii.s number of French by surprise, got the better of 
them in a short fight, cut down tlie green corn in the 
fields and retreated through the woods toward his 
caiioes. The Frencii, however, lay in ambush for him 
in the forest; Schuyler charged them, drove them from 
their hiding place, fought his way through their midst, 
turned around and drove them back some forty paces 
over the bodies of the slain and was, to tell the truth, 
heai-tily glad to see them retreat. He finally regained 
his canoes, having left his dead and his flags behind 
liim, but brought off hie wounded. 

A few days later found this gallant little band 
paddlirig up Lake George, having fought the first fight 
in this region, which savored but little of Indian 
methods of warfare ; and well it might since the 
braves on botii sides liad nearly all deserted at the 
outset of the struggle. 

THE PATH OF PEACE MESSENGERS- 
In 1698, plucky Peter Schuyler and the Dutch 
dominie at Albany paddled down Lake George on 
their way to Canada, with news of the Peace of 
Ryswick, which is the more memorable in this region 
because the Iroquois lords of these waters ceased from 
this time to be great conquerors. Deadly wars had 
much reduced their numbers, they had taken a fresh 
step in civilization and become shrewd traders, and 
they were so politic as to see that they gained in im- 
portance by joining neither the English nor the 
French, being courted by both, while they were not 
without a shrewd suspicion that these eager friends 
were each casting covetou s eyes on their lands. Thus 



IB 
it fell out that Lake George wa« at peace for the first 
time, in all probability, for untold ages. 

THE ENGL'SH ADVANCE TO LAKE GEORGE. 

The last French war was the only one of the four 
to begin in Amt^rica; the only one in which the dis- 
putes of the New World threw the Old into a struggle. 

English and French interests clashed at many points 
as well as in the region of Lake George, and it was in 
11 race for the possession of the Ohio Valley that that 
war first broke out The English began the war with 
great vigor, encroaching. France was to be pushed back 
at four points, the mouth of the St. Lawrence, the 
Ohio valley, the Great Lakes, and at Lake Champlain. 
William Johnson, the Indian agent of the Mohawk, 
for the reason that he was the only man who could 
hope to engage the Iroquois Indians on the English 
side in the war, was chosen to lead an army against 
Crown Point. 

"My war kettle is on the fire," he said in a speech 
to the Indians, "My canoe is ready to launch, my gun 
is loaded, my sword is by my side and my axe is 
sharpened." Rethrew down the war belt and an 
Oneida chief took it up; but there had to be endless 
councils and much consumption of barbecued oxen and 
punch before some three hundred braves were aroused 
to the pitch of joining him afterwards at Lake St. Sac- 
rement, as Lake George was then called. 

In the summer of 1755, Johnson's soldiers gathered 
slowly at Albany from five different colonies, amid 
much confusion about provisions, each province at- 



16 
tempting to feed its own men. In July some of these 
men were sent up the Hudson to build forts at the 
various carrying places on the river and to cut a road 
from Albany to Lake George. It was not until the 
latter part of August that General Johnson with some 
three or four thousand men made his way up the 
rough hewn road, regaling his officers by the way with 
cold venison and lemon punch. 

Johnson was an ambitious young Irishman, of a 
good family, amassing a fortune out of trade and' 
wild lands, a favorite with men in power and much 
loved by the Indians by reason of his just dealing and 
his half-breed family. He lived in soma state on the 
Mohawk in a colonial mansion, swarmed over by his 
Indian neighbors, a strange mixture of the European 
gentleman, the Indian trader and the pioneer. Arrived 
at the lake, his first act was to re-name it after King 
George II, not only in honor of this dull monarch, 
but as he said to assert his undoubted dominion over 
these waters. He chose for his camp a spot near 
the beach at the head of the lake, with a marsh to the 
west of him and the higher ground on which Fort 
George afterwards stood on the east. He threw up 
no entrenchments for he expected soon to move on 
down the lake to the attack of Crown Point. He 
waited only on the stores, cannons and boats which 
were being slowly and laboriously hauled up from Fort 
Edward, on old-fashioned Dutch wagons, to be dumped 
on the beach ready for transportation. 

THE FRENCH AT TICONDEROGA. 

It happened when the grand English expedition 
against Fort DuQuesne on the Ohio had been defeated 



17 
by the Indian ambuscade in July that the French had 
learned from reading the captured papers of General 
Braddock that there were men mustering at Albany 
to attack Crown Feint. Immediately the Baron 
Dieskau,an experiimced German officer and a field mar- 
shal of France, having some regiments of finely 
trained regular soldier^^ at his command, was ordered 
to ascend Lake Champlain and oppose General John- 
son. It was expected in Canada that Dieskau would 
capture Fort Edward and perhaps even penetrate to 
Albany. He was a very active and courageous man 
whose motto was ''Boldness wins!" and he set out ful- 
ly determined to "mar the plans of the English." 
When he had reached Crown Point he did not wait 
there to be attacked but moved on and encamped at 
Ticonderoga, his forces being the first to occupy that 
important point which commanded botii the carrying 
place to Lake George and the soutliern arm of Lake 
Champlain, the only two ways of approaching Canada 
from the interior with cannon. 

Baron Dieskau had a number of Indians 
with him, and arrived at Ticonderoga, he urged them 
to go scouting that he might know where the English 
were and what were their numbers. But the Indians 
would do nothing but devour oxen, hogs and brandy, 
until the impatient Frenchman declared that it needed 
"the patience of an angel to get on with these devils." 
At length a few of them saw fit to venture near Fort 
Edward, and returned with one scalp and a prisoner. 
Captives played an important part in these wars 
around Lake George, for in such a wilderness they 
were the only means of gaining information, and for 



18 
this reason they were known to the Indians as? 
"living letters." This prisoner was threatened in 
the usually effective way with Indian tortures if he 
failed to tell the truth, but he riskefl hie own life by 
telling a falsehood, which he hoped would draw the 
French into a trap. The English army, he said, had 
retired to Albany and but five hundred men remained 
at Fort Edward, which was not in a state of defense.. 



THE MARCH UPON FORT EDWARD. 



Baron Dieskau thought this his opportunity to cap- 
ture Fort Edward. It was impossible to take all of 
the army at Ticonderoga with him through the woods 
to this place and he chose fifteen hundred men for 
the expedition, something over two hundred French 
regulars and nearly fourteen Indians and Canadians. 
Each man carried food for eight days upon his back 
and officers were allowed no other baggage than a 
spare shirt and pair of shoes, 4 blanket and a bear- 
skin each. Indians were ordered to take no scalps 
lintil the enemy was routed, since ten men might be 
killed while one was being scalped. The men ascend- 
ed in canoes that long arm of Lake Champlain run- 
ning parallel with Lake George. At its head they 
left their canoes and began their march through the 
woods, the Indians guiding them over fallen trees 
and rocks, through underbrush and swamps, toward 
the Hudson, the whole army of fifteen hundred men 
sometimes crossing a stream one at a time on a log. 



19 




/ 






Johnson lay at Lake George in the confusion of a 
new camp, when his scouts brouaht him word that 



20 
a body of French and Indians were marching through 
the woods from South Bay to Fort Edward. Johnson 
knew that the works at Fort Edward, or Fort Lyman, 
as it was then called, were yet unfinished, the cannon 
mostly unmounted and the men carelessly encamped 
in various places outside the entrenchments. There 
was great danger that the French would capture this 
post, in which case Johnson's army would be cut off 
from supplies and obliged to capitulate. He hurried 
a messenger off to Fort Edward with a note to the 
commander, in which he advised him to bury his 
unmounted cannon and make a brave defense. 

Dieskau's Indians meanwhile were not pleased with 
the idea of attacking Fort Edward. These people 
never liked open fighting and they dreaded cannon. 
Instead of guiding Dieskau directly to Fort Edward 
they led him to the banks of the Hudson, between 
the present towns of Sandy Hill and (5lens Falls. 
Here the new road ran which had so recently been 
cut between Fort Edward and Lake George. The 
Indians lay in wait along its edge and captured the 
messenger that Johnson had sent to warn Fort Ed- 
ward of its danger. They also killed and captured 
some wagon drivers and put others to flight. From 
these prisoners Dieskau for the first time learned that 
there were several thousand men at Lake George. 
Still he would have marched on against Fort Edward 
but his Indians objected. There were cannon, they 
said, at Fort Edward and none at Lake George. A 
part of them were converted Mohawks from near 
Montreal and they did not like to go where they were 



21 
likely to kill their own kindred. They objected that 
Fort Edward was on English land ; they would not 
attack the English on their own ground, they said, 
but they were willing to fight them at Lake George, 
which was French soil. Fort Edward was French 
land also, said Dieskau, but the Indians denied this. 
Either the Baron must be content to beat an inglori- 
ous retreat or march against Johnson at Lake George. 
He chose to do the latter. He knew that Johnson's 
men were raw recruits, American farmers in home- 
si)un, most of whom had never seen fighting of any 
sort, and like all officers from the Old World, he be- 
lieved that such men were very poor soldiers, likely 
to run at the first onslaught, as was too often the case 
indeed. ' 'The more there are the more we shall kill, ' ' 
said he and he turned up the road to Lake George and 
marched that day as far as Glen Lake where he camped 
for the night on the evening of the seventh of Septem- 
ber, 1755. 

THE BLOODY MORNING SCOUT. 

An attack was the last thing expected at Lake 
George. The cannon lay on the beach, the camp was 
unfortified and the only anxiety of the officers was for 
Fort Edward. The soldiers were farmers,, mostly 
armed with their own hunting pieces, with hatchets 
stuck in their belts and powder horns slung over 
their shoulders, the officers were largely inexperi- 
enced in war; their general, Johnson, was a curious 
mixture of the country gentleman and trader; General 
Lyman had been a Yale tutor and later a lawyer; 
Colonel Titcomb had seen some service in the last war, 



as had Williams, a member of the General Court of 
Massachusetts, and deputy sheriff; vSeth Pomeroy was 
a gunsmith, while Putnam and Stark, future generals 
of the Revolution, had seen no more severe conflicts 
t lian an Indian skirmish and a hand-to-hand encounter 
with a she wolf in a cave. The officers held a council 
of war to decide what was to be done to save Fort 
Edward, the fall of which would cut them off from 
home and supplies. They little suspected that the 
enemy were about breaking camp only four miles 
distant, at Glen Lake. The chief of the Mohawks, 
King Hendrick, a fat old fellow who had long been a 
warm friend of the English, attended the council. It 
was proposed to send five hundred white men and 
gome Indians to the aid of Fort Edward and five hun- 
dred more to South Bay, on Lake Champlain, to cut 
off the French from their boats. But King Hendrick 
did not approve. He put several sticks together and 
broke them; he then put a number of sticks together 
and showed that they could not be broken. In this 
way he objected to the force being divided. The hint 
was taken and it was decided to send one thousand 
whites and two hundred Indians to the aid of Fort 
Edward. King Hendrick still objected that they 
were too few to fight and too many to be killed, but 
since they were going he climbed upon a gun car- 
riage and made a stirring speech to the Indian war- 
riors to get them to follow him to battle. 

It was eight o'clock on the morning of the eighth 
of September, 1755, that the twelve hundred men 
set forth on their march to the relief of Fort 
Edward. The party was commanded by Colonel 



23 
Ephraim Williams, a robust and heavy man who had 
done some Indian fighting in the last war, and who, 
though he was himself an uneducated man, loved 
learning so well that he had made a will at Albany 
leaving a legacy to found a school, which afterwards 
became Williams College. The Indians were led by 
King Hendrick, so old and fat that he ambled at 
their head on a pony. The men marched some dis- 
tance down the road and then halted for a portion of 
their forces to come up. So certain were the English 
that the enemy was no nearer than Fort Edward 
that no scouts were sent out and a straggler going on 
ahead during the halt was captured by the French, 
advancing from their camp of the night, and gave 
Dieskau information of the approaching body of men. 
The French general was on the full march to Lake 
George along the new road where it ran between the 
flanks of French and West Mountains. He instantly 
ordered his men to drop their knapsacks and lie flat 
on the ground, the Indians upon one side of the road, 
the Canadians upon the other and the French in the 
rear. He hoped that Williams would march directly 
into this ambuscade and so be enclosed as in a bag 
and destroyed as Braddock's army had been on the 
Ohio. And indeed the English and their Indians 
came on carelessly enough. They had begun to enter 
the trap when the Mohawks of the St. Lawrence, 
seeing their brothers of the Mohawk Valley in ad- 
vance, arose and fired into the air as a warning. The 
concealed Canadians and Frenchmen immediately 
opened fire. Many of the English party dropped 
under the deadly volley and their front ranks fell 



re was 



24 

back, "doubled up like a pack of cards." There was 

great confusion. King Hendrick was killed, ani 

Coonel U.lliams, running up a little eminence and 

c .mb,ng upon a boulder to encourage his men, was 

*uck down where his monument now stands. CoT 

Pletely taken by surprise as they were, Wiilia,^' 

forces were soon routed and fell back toward the lake 

pursued by the French and Indians. Some of the 

men were, however, rallied by Lieutenant-Colonel 

M Mting and with the aid of a party sent out from 

Johnson's camp at the lake and some Mohawk 

Indians covered the retreat, fighting from behtd 

rees m true Indian fashion and falling slowly S 

th s plucky body of men after delivering their last 
volley, three-fourths of a mile from the lafe an'i ed 
.n good order. This affair was long know,'. ""he 
Dloody morning scout." 

THE BATTLE OF UKE GEORGE 

At the camp at Lake George no one su,spected the 

eighborhoodoftheenemyuntilaboutnineo'cIockL 

"ouuhr^'f^"^?^"-^^'--'' -' 'he ambtsh 
about three miles south. Then at last these untried 

menreah.edtheirdangerandwenttoworki,rh™te 
to build some sort of a rude defense. They dra Jed 

boats and wagons to their front and with them fnd 

haSsLr f ' f"'^ -^dbranchesoftreesbSltthe 
hastiest sort of a barricade about their camp, hauling 
up cannon from the beach for it's defense. There we2 
not more than seventeen hundred effective men of 



25 

them and they were a good deal demoralized by the 
morning's rout, so that a brisk assault at this moment 
would probably have carried the improvised works, 
boats, wagons, cannon and all. 

Dieskau guessed that a surprise would be too much 
for these raw New York and New England levies and 
he had intended to chase the fugitives to their very 
camp and enter it with them pell-mell, but his Can- 
adians and Indians were an unmanageable sort of 
troops, trying to the soul of a French field marshal. 
They had scattered everywhere through the woods in 
pursuit of the retreating English and were alreadj^ 
plundering and scalping the dead. Dieskau called a 
halt not far from the lake and caused a trumpet to be 
blown to call in the scattered men. The Indians and 
Canadians came in but slowly, unwilling to involve 
themselves in a fresh fight; for Indians never tempt, 
their luck by following up a success, and the Canadians 
had been taught in the school of Indian warfare. The 
morning's victory was enough for them, but Dieskau 
insisted and they followed sullenly in the rear of the 
French regular troops as the latter marched briskly up 
the road to Lake George. 

Presently the farmer soldiers behind their wagons 
and upturned boats at the Lake George camp saw the 
French coming up the road in beautiful order, their 
white uniforms and polished arms glistening in the 
sun. As they approached from the front the Indians 
came around through the woods on the left of the en- 
campment and charged down the hill where Fort 
George afterwards stood, yelling and whooping in 



26 

their own blood curdling manner. It was too much 
for the untried men in Johnson's little army; some of 
them slunk back, but their officers drew their swords 
and threatened to run them through if they did not 
stand to their posts. At this moment an assault would 
have won the day; but Indians have no stomach for 
this sort of fighting. Instead, they scattered about 
the camp, after their manner, each man behind a tree 
and firing on his own account. The French deployed, 
formed among the trees in the front and fired. But 
the English cannon, under the command of a good 
officer, Captain Eyre^ greeted them with dis- 
charges of grape shot which made "streets, lanes and 
alleys" through the ranks of the French and com- 
pelled them to seek a place of greater shelter. On 
they came again^ however, and there was a hot and 
steady fire on both sides, which seemed to the unac- 
customed ears of a surgeon in the English camp like 
"nothing but thunder and lightning and perpetual 
pillai'S of smoke." Johnson soon retired to his tent 
with a flesh wound in the thigh and Lyman, lawyer 
though he was, staid in the thick of the fight for 
about four hours, encouraging the men. They were 
getting into the spirit of the thing by this time. As 
the wounded were carried to the rear, the wagoners 
in the camp seized their guns and powder horns and 
joined in the fight, while some of the men who ran 
out of ammunition "picked up the enemy's and gen- 
erously returned it to them." 

A body of Indians now opened fire from the com- 
manding hill where Fort William Henry was after- 
wards built, but a few shell dropped among them scat- 



27 
tered them. For two hours Dieskau attacked the 
front and left of the English camp. He then came 
around to the right and for two hours more the strug- 
gle was at this pointy where were the regiments of 
Colonel Ruggles, of Titcomband of the dead Williams, 
Titcomb was killed at this point, fighting from behind 
a tree in advance of the barricade, in true frontier 
fashion. Once more the French returned to the front 
and tried to gain the rear, but some well directed shot 
from a thirty-two pounder "made them shift their 
berth." The French regulars, who had borne the brunt 
of the fight, w^ere badly cut to pieces but the doughty 
Baron would not give up the day. At length he wa& 
shot in the leg. His adjutant, Montreuil, was washing 
the wound with brandy, after the practice of the day^. 
w^ien the unfortunate general was hit in the knee and 
in the thigh. The Baron was helped to a sitting 
posture behind a tree, and Montreuil fetched two Ca- 
nadians to carry him off, but one of them was shot and 
fell dead across Dieskau,. who in agony from his 
injuries and wounded pride, cursed the Indian and 
Canadian troops for cowards and authors of the 
misfortunes of the day and ordered Montreuil to leave 
him and lead the French once more against the Eng- 
lish, saying that here was as good a deathbed as any 
for him. 

It was about five o'clock in the afternoon when Mont- 
reuil took command of the French forces. They were 
already wavering and no sooner did the hardy Ameri- 
can frontiersmen in the English camp perceive thfs 
than they scaled their barricades and rushed upon 
them with clubbed muskets and hatchets. There 



28 
was nothing left for Montreuil but to lead a retrear. 
The Frenchmen took to the woods and made their 
way around the south end of French mountain, drop- 
ping their accoutrements as they fled. Their flight 
probably gave its name to the mountain though I 
have heard it ascribed by an old inhabitant to the 
fact that two Frenchmen once spent some months on 
the mountain where they were believed to have re- 
covered some treasure buried by these fugitives, un- 
likely as it is that men laden wi+h their own provis- 
ions would have lugged valuables about with them in 
a wilderness or climbed a mountain to conceal it on a 
precipitate flight. It is certain that the fugitive French^ 
having left their knapsacks behind them, suffered 
greatly for food before they reached South Bay where 
they took to their canoes and paddled back to Ticon- 
deroga. 

The battle of Lake George will be forever memorable 
as the first struggle in which the untrained farmers 
of America faced the finely drilled troops of the Old 
World and learned the courage which afterwards led 
them to dare to bring on the struggle of the Revolu- 
tion. 

THE BLOODY POND FfGHT. 

Many of the Indians and Canadians of Dieskau's 
army were in no such haste as their French comrades. 
Before the battle at the lake was over they had de- 
serted the fight and returned to the battlefield of the 
morning to scalp and plunder the dead. 

The commandant at Fort Edward, knowing nothing 
of the danger which had threatened him but hearing 



^2^ 
'ot the wagoners who had been kiUed on the road, 
sent out a party of sixty men to scour the woods. 
This party returned with the report that firing had 
been heard toward Lake George, whereupon some 
two hundred men under Captains Folsom and Mc- 
Ginnis were ordered to marcli to the assistance of 
General Johnson. Advancing up the Lake George 
road, these men found the French knapsacks and 
baggage lying on the ground where they had been 
dropped before the ambush of the morning. On a 
hill were a few Indians on the lookout, but the Fort 
Edward party contrived to get between them and the 
baggage. Further on they came upon the enemy 
seated on the margin of a little pool in the woods, rest- 
ing and waiting no doubt to see what would be the 
fate of their deserted comrades at the lake before they 
made good their retreat with their booty. There 
were three hundred of the Canadians and Indians and 
but two hundred and ten of the Fort Edward men, 
but the latter were mostly cool frontiersmen and a 
deadly aim. They fell upon the others around the 
pool and a sharp fight ensued in which one of the 
leaders, Captain McGinnis, was mortally wounded but 
did not cease to give orders until the Canadians and 
Indians fled, when he fainted and was carried on horse 
to Lake George, there to die. The Port Edward 
men reached the battlefield at this place in time to 
see the last of the French rout. Because of the stub- 
born struggle around the dark little pool in the woods, 
and because, as it is said, the dead were afterwards 
thrown into it as a simple method of burial it got the 
name of Bloody Pond, and keeps it to this day. 



30 
BARON BIESKAU'S DANGER. 
The wounded general, afield marshal of France and 
a German nobleman, was left alone on the forest 
battlefield at the close of the day's action. He had 
■caused his laced hat and coat to be laid beside him, 
probably with the idea that they would indicate his 
i-anli to those who found him. The first man to 
observe him skulked cautiously up and took shelter 
behind a tree, as was common in Indian and frontier 
warfare. The battle was scarcely over and it was a 
question whether the fellow would not murder him, 
so Dieskau put his hand to his pocket for his w^atch 
to offer it as a bribe. Instantly the man fired, sup- 
posing that the wounded oflicer was about to draw 
a pistol. The ball penetrated the hips and perfor- 
ated the bladder of the unfortunate general. 

''You rascal, why did you fire?" the Baron demand- 
ed. "You see a man lying in his blood on the ground 
and you shoot him." 

"How did I know," the fellow answered, in broken 
English, for he was a renegade Frenchman. "How 
did I know you did not have a pistol? I had rather 
kill the devil than have the devil kill me." 

"You are a Frenchman!" exclaimed Dieskau. 

^*Yes," was the reply, "it is more than ten years 
since I left Canada." 

Several of those harpees who haunt a battlefield 
now fell upon the wounded general and began to strip 
him of his clothes, but he soon pursuaded them to 
carry him to their general, which they did, eight of 
them bearing him in a blanket to Johnson's tent, 
who when he learned that the French commander was 



"31 
"his prisoner, called for surgeons and refused to liaTe 
bis own wound treated until those of the suffering 
Baron were attended to, 

A new danger now awaited Dieskau, which he did 
•not suspect. Those troublesome allies, the Indians, 
were drunk with revenge, as was usual with them 
after a battle. The morning's losses had fallen heavily 
on them and forty out of two hundred had been 
-slain, including several important chiefs. They had 
had no appetite for the struggle of the afternoon but 
looked on while the battle raged, saying that they 
were come to see their English brothers fight. At the 
xylose of the day they invaded the battlefield and took 
-seventy scalps; but they were still enraged though far 
from being so high spirited as their English brothers 
could have wished. Some of them now walked into 
General Johnson's camp as freely as they had been 
wont to haunt his mansion on the Mohawk, The suf- 
fering Dieskau, lying on Johnson's pallet, could not 
understand their talk but he observed by their voices 
*hat they were angry and saw that they cast sullen 
glances at him from time to time as they talked. When 
they were gone he asked Johnson what they wanted, 

■* * What do they want?" repeated Johnson. ' To burn 
you, by God; eat you and smoke you in their pipes, in 
revenge for the three or four of their chiefs that were 
killed. But do not fear, you shall be safe with me or 
they will kill us both." 

Dieskau wished to be removed lest he should in- 
commode his host, but Johnson said: **I dare not 



32 
move you, for if I did so the Indians would massacre 
you. They must have time to sleep." 

These worthies came into the tent again at eleven 
o'clock at night. Their voices were very menacing, but 
no one knew better how to manage them than did 
Johnson, and at last they seemed quieted, and came 
and shook hands with the wounded general before 
leaving. It was now midnight and Johnson caused 
Dieskau to be removed to a colonel's tent under guard 
of a captain and fifty men. The men on guard were 
charged to let no Indian into the tent but when morn- 
ing had come and one presented himself unarmed they 
let him pass. No sooner, however, was the rascal in 
than he drew a naked sword out from under his 
xiloak and sprang at the wounded general. But the 
Colonel was too quick for him: he threw himself be- 
tween the savage and his victim, disarmed the fellow 
nnd pushed him out of the tent. 

AVith this last adventure Dieskau' s danger from the 
Indians was over, for nothing could induce them to re- 
main longer at Lake George. They must go home, 
they said, to cheer their people after the death of so 
many warriors and Johnson was obliged to present 
them with two pieces of black blanketing with which 
to cover the graves of the dead, according to Indian 
customs of condolence. 

When Baron Dieskau had sufficiently recovered to 
bear the journey he was carried to NewYork on a lit- 
ter. He was for some time a prisoner in England and 
afterwards returned to France where he died twelve 
years to a day after the battle of Lake George, of the 
effects of the wounds received on that field. 

The French in Canada were greatly grieved over the 



33 
defeat of Dieskau and now that it had failed were ready 
to call his expedition "a piece of bravado." They 
were disgusted that *'so glorious a trophy" as a French 
field marshal should have been left on the field of bat- 
tle and wished that he might have been brought off, 
"dead or alive." 

HOLDING LAKE GEORGE. 

The battle of Lake George caused the expedition 
against Crown Point to be abandoned, as perhaps it 
would soon have been in any case • because of the 
lateness of the season and the difficulty of bringing 
up the necessary stores from Albany. The murder 
of some teamsters near Fort Edward before the battle 
and the alarm of the French invasion caused those 
who had w^agons and horses to hide them and drivers 
to decline the perilous service. Most of the provis- 
ions for the expedition w^ere still at Albany ; the 
greater part of the ammunition and boats remained 
at Fort Edward, and a few jaded horses w^ere all that 
Johnson could command. 
The battle had another result for the English. They 
began to fortify themselves on Lake George. The 
spirited attack of Dieskau had taught them the neces- 
sity of this. Entrenchments were thrown up around 
the camp and a fort was begun on a rise of ground 
on the lake shore, in the eastern part of the present 
grounds of the Fort William Henry Hotel. Johnson 
named this post William Henry after a young English 
prince, the King's grandson, and rechristened the 
fort at the Great Carrying Place, Fort Edward, after 
another young prince, though it had been known for 



Z4- 
sfome months as Fort Lyman^ in honor of the Brave 
officer of that name. 

While Fort William Henry was building the French 
were entrenching themselves at TJconderoga^ so that^ 
they now commanded one end of Lake George and the 
English the other. Here the rival powers were nearer 
each other than at any other point, only something? 
ever thirty miles of placid water flowing between^ 
them. 

When Johnson had first heard of the intended: 
French invasion he had asked for more men.. These- 
eame in October. They were dressed in summer 
clothing, with no covering but one thin homemade 
blanket each, and they shivered in their camp a,s 
winter came on apace in this cold northern climate^ 
They were a disorderly tot of newly-levied men w^ho- 
had been reared in the half-wild freedom and equal- 
ity of a new land, and their officers, chosen by the 
men from among themselves,- commanded no respect.- 
When the cold November rains set in and muddy- 
water stood in the tents they clubl^d their muskets 
and marched off in squads. The camp finally broke 
up on the twenty-seventh of the month, and a few~ 
men from each of the northern colonies were left to« 
hold the post, while the rest marched off down the 
road to Fort Edward, insulting their colonel by the 
way. 

In the next summer, that of 1756, the English 
meant at least to capture Ticonderoga, by way of 
Lake George. Again a great many men got together 
at Albany, and seven thousand of them slowly made 
their way up the Hudson toward Lake George, pes- 



35 
tered on their way by gangs of Indians who discour- 
aged straggling by scalping the stragglers. The new 
Fort William Henry was in command of Colonel 
Jonathan Bagley, a jocular fello>v, who, when he was 
ordered to hurry on the boat building which was now 
in progress at Lake George, answered that ''every 
wheel ' ' should go ' 'that rum and human flesh could 
move," But, in spite of honest Bagley's efforts, the 
campaign proved a failure, for there was a deal of 
confusion about provisions besides a change of com- 
manders at midsummer, which was no improvement, 
and the English troops, like the King of France and 
his forty thousand men in the nursery rhyme, having 
marched up the Hudson, marched down again 
at the end of the season, but not without leaving 
many dead behind them at their unsanitary camping 
places. The French, left unmolested at Ticonderoga, 
amused themselves with fishing and hunting the 
ducks, geese, partridges, beavers and clouds of wild 
pigeons which they foiind there. 

SCOUTING ON LAKE GEORGE. 

Lake George was now the center of warfare. Ticon- 
deroga swarmed with Indians from the northwest 
who made their way with ease over the immense 
system of waterways commanded by the French to 
this "nest of hornets." From here they fell upon the 
thinly peopled back settlements of the English w ith 
fire and the hatchet. Wild Pottawatomies ascend- 
ed Lake George to pick off the sentinels at Fort Wil- 
liam Henry with their stone-headed arrows, and once 
an English captain and fifty men were caught in an 



36 
ambush not far from the latter fort, and only six 
escaped to tell the tale. 

The English garrison at Fort William Henry had 
no Indians to send on like errands against Ticonder- 
oga; no one to annoy the enemy and render him more 
wary; no one to capture an occasional prisoner from 
Avhom they might learn what the French were doing 
and what were their numbers. The English were 
never so successful as the French in managing their 
Indian neighbors. They might count themselves 
lucky that they had Sir William Johnson to keep the 
Iroquois from going bodily over to the French. These 
Indians declined to scout about posts and gradually 
there grew up among the English colonists a body of 
hardy and adventurous rangers, whose headquarters 
were at Lake George. Among these men were Stark 
and Putnam, afterwards generals in the war of the 
Revolution. Sturdy frontiersmen they were, adven- 
turous hunters and Indian fighters. The most fam- 
ous of them all, and their leader, was Robert Rogers, 
a man who had smuggled goods through the waters 
of Lake George before the war. In this doubtful trade 
he had learned to speak French, and, what was of 
more importance, knew the forests and mountains 
of these inland water courses by heart. His character 
was not an admirable one. Later in life he was sus- 
pected of dishonesty and treason, but he was a man 
of a good deal of natural ability, and never was there 
a better scout. 

Rogers and the hardy rangers of whom he was 
captain skated in the winter time down Lake George 
or clambered over drifts in their snowshoes and 



37 
approached Ticonderoga to take daring observations 
of the works or intercept some small party of the 
garrison. During the open season they descended 
Lake George in boats, and if at its lower end they 
discerned signs of the enemy they laid by and feigned 
to be fishermen until night gave them a chance of 
escape. Quickness and stealth they practised, like 
their Indian forerunners on these waters, and above 
all things they dreaded a light snowfall in which they 
might be tracked, for their service was an exceedingly 
perilous one. Rogers, however, made light of its perils 
and called a stealthy journey to Ticonderoga, 
makinsT a visit to his "old friends, the French guard," 
who knew him indeed only too well. Once he and 
several others boldly marched up to a sentinel whose 
challenge Rogers answered in French. 

''Qui etes vous?" demanded the puzzled fellow. 

"Rogers!" replied the famous scout, and he hurried 
him off a prisoner to where his boats lay hidden at 
the foot of the lake for the return trip to Fort William 
Henry. 

In June of 1756, Rogers was ordered by the English 
general, then making ready for a blow at Ticonderoga 
which never was struck, to go to Lake Champlain 
and intercept provisions and parties of the enemy. 
Rogers selected for his purpose fifty men and five 
whale boats. The party embarked on the beach at 
the head of Lake George and descended the lake un- 
til nightfall when they all encamped on an island. 
The next day they made for a point on the east shore, 
carried their boats over the mountains and launched 
them in South Bay; they descended this southern arm 



38 
of Lake Champlain at night and when morning came 
they hid their boats within six miles of Ticonderoga. 
All day they lay in hiding and at night they slipped 
by the hostile fort. They could hear the sentinels at 
Ticonderoga calling to one another and they counted 
the camp fires to judge of the numbers of the French 
force at this post. They hid their boats for the day 
five miles below Ticonderoga and the next night 
attempted to pass Crown Point, but the sky was so 
clear that they feared being discovered and returned 
to their hiding place for another day. As they lay 
hidden in the woods on the margin of the lake they 
saw one hundred boats pass up and down between 
the two French forts and once seven boat loads of 
French soldiers were about to land at their very hid- 
ing place, but finally chose a spot farther on, where 
they might be seen eating their dinner all uncon- 
scious of the lurking enemy. 

The next night found the rangers in their boats 
once more and this time they slipped safely by be- 
tween Crown and Chimney Points under cover of the 
darkness and landed ten miles below. The follow- 
ing day as they lay concealed they saw thirty boats 
and a schooner pass down the lake on the way to 
Canada. They descended the lake fifteen miles 
farther before they dared attempt anything and then 
they lightened their boats and prepared for the attack 
of a schooner lying a mile below them; but two 
lighters meantime came in sight and made for Eogers' 
hiding place. The rangers fired upon them and offered 
quarter but the crews pushed for the opposite shore 
and Rogers gave them chase. He captured the two 



39 
vessels and sank them, with their cargoes of flour, 
wine and brandy, though not until he had prudently 
hidden a few of the brandy casks in the woods, for 
future use. There were twelve men on the two boats, 
three of whom were killed and one wounded. With 
heartlessness worthy of an Indian, Rogers dispatched 
the wounded man, since he was unable to walk and 
if left behind would give the alarm and cause a pursuit 
of the rangers. The prisoners said they belonged to a 
detachment of five hundred men who were not far be- 
hind. When Rogers heard this he made haste to hide 
his boats and struck through the woods for Fort Will- 
iam Henry which he reached with eight prisoners and 
four scalps, for these men imitated the Indians even 
to the taking of these hateful trophies. 

* *It is an abominable kind of war, ' ' said a French 
officer who had witnessed Indian cruelties at Ticonde- 
roga. **The air one breathes is contagious of insensi- 
bility and hardness." 

Rogers afterwards retraced his way through the 
woods to his boats, and no doubt to his brandy, 
descended Lake Champlain almost as far as its foot, 
took three prisoners, hid his boats once more and re- 
turnod to Fort William Henry a second time without 
having been discovered. A month later the French 
were astonished to find some English boats in a cove 
eight miles north of Crown Point. They could not 
understand how they got there and sent out exploring 
parties to see if there were not some unknown water 
passage around Crown Point and Ticonderoga. 



40 
A WINTER ATTACK ON FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 

The battle of Lake George had taught both the 
French and the EngUsh caution, and the midwinter 
of 1757 found them watching one another from either 
end of Lake George, which was frozen as smooth as a 
floor. Montcahn, the new French general did not 
propose to imitate the rash example of Dieskau, but 
the Governor of Canada, who had had far less expe- 
rience, was more enterprising, and planned a winter 
attack upon Fort William Henry, of which he hoped 
to gain the honors by placing his brother in com- 
mand. In February a body of French and Canadian 
soldiers and some Abenaki Indians marched up Lake 
Champlain on the ice, dressed in overcoats, moccasins 
and mittens and dragging sleds laden with bearskins 
and blankets for bedding; kettles for cooking; old sails 
by way of tents; provisions, and a change of moccas- 
ins and mittens. These men rested for a week at 
Ticonderoga, where they made three hundred scaling 
ladders. It was the fifteenth day of March, 1757, and 
still winter in this northern latitude, when they 
marched out from Ticonderoga and began to ascend 
Lake George. On the evening of the eighteenth they 
halted under the edge of a mountain, three miles 
from the head of the lake. 

There were about three hundred and forty effective 
men in Fort William Henry, commanded by Major 
Eyre, a good engineer, one of the few officers who 
had escaped Braddock's defeat, and the man who 
had served the artillery so well at the Battle of Lake 
George. The works were not strong ; outside the 
fort were a hospital, a sawmill, a number of boats 



41 
which had been built the year before for the attack 
on Ticonderoga, piles of wood and lumber, some 
sloops which were frozen into the ice and one which 
was still on the stocks. The regular soldiers in the 
fort were Irishmen and were hardly recovered from a 
spree wath which they had celebrated St. Patrick's 
Day. Their American comrades, the rangers, would 
gladly have joined in the jubilation but Captain 
Stark, who was then commanding them, prudently 
spent the holiday in his tent, with a lame hand which 
troubled him so much that he was unable to write 
orders for extra rations of rum at the request of his 
men. These unwillingly sober fellows were on guard 
on the night of the eighteenth, and it was they who 
detected a sound of distant chopping, down the lake, 
as the French replenished their camp tires at one 
o'clock in the morning. Two hours later the senti- 
nels, on the alert now, heard the sound of many 
footsteps on the icy floor of the lake's surface. The 
French had depended on a surprise, for Canadian 
and Indian troops could not be counted on for an 
assault in any other case; but they knew that they 
were discovered when they heard the "Whos*^' of 
the watchful garrison. Shortly afterwards the fort 
cannon were discharged into the darkness in the 
direction of the telltale footfalls, and no more was 
heard at the fort of the besieging force that night. 

The next day the French '^nrrounded the fort, at a 
safe distance, and sent a body of Indians to occupy 
tl e road which Id to Fort Edward. They kept up a 
harmless, distant fire that day and under cover of the 
night again approached by the ice. Again they were 



42 

greeted with a discharge of grape and round shot and 
once more they retired, contenting themselves with 
setting fire to the sloops which lay frozen in the lake 
and the small boats along the shore which had been 
built at the expense of so much "rum and human 
flesh," the summer before. Some of the English 
soldiers sallied forth and attempted to save them, but 
it was too late. The next day the French lay quietly 
in the woods until noon, when they all marched 
across the lake at a safe distance, holding up their 
scaling ladders to view, like an army in a play. Sev- 
eral men were sent toward the fort, waving a red 
flag. Major Eyre dispatched a party to meet the 
flag, who presently returned with a blindfolded 
French officer, who bore a summons to surrender. 
The summons was accompanied by the usual threat 
of an Indian massacre in case of resistance, but Major 
Eyre paid no heed to this, merely replying that he 
intended to defend Fort William Henry to the last. 
The Frenchman returned with this message, and the 
army on the ice approached as if to carry out their 
threat of an assault, but only fired a harmless volley 
against the wall of the fort and retired. At night 
the French were once more heard upon the ice and 
the garrison prepared for the promised assault; but 
the enemy was contented with falling upon the huts, 
storehouses, hospital, sawmill, lumber and wood 
which lay without the fort, building fires of pitch 
pine against them and burning all to the ground, not 
without hopes that the flames would spread to the 
wooden walls of the fort itself. The falling cinders 
did indeed threaten the soldiers' barracks, and the 



43 
men were forced to tear the roofs off these buildings 
to save them. 

The next day a moist snow fell and the French 
staid in their camp, but on the day following some 
volunteers ventured so near the fort as to fire the 
sloop on the stocks. Five of these men were killed — 
the sole loss of the whole expedition. The remainder 
of the French kept at a safe distance on the ice while 
the sloop went up in flames and ended the exploits 
of the winter siege, for the following morning found 
French, Canadians and Indians on their way down 
the lake, laboring through the three feet of snow 
which now covered the ice, many of them snow blind 
and led on to Ticonderoga by the hand. The Gov- 
ernor of Canada, a vain-glorious mortal, made the 
most of this attempt and boasted that by its means 
the plans of the English had been "calcined." 

MONTCALM ON LAKE GEORGE. 

The plans of the English had in fact taken quite 
another direction. A grand attack upon the fortress of 
Louisburg was proposed by the feeble English com- 
mander. Lord Loudoun, and most of the forces were 
the next summer drawn away from Fort William 
Henry and Fort Edward for this purpose. The French 
general, Montcalm, had bided his time and he now 
saw his chance to dislodge the English from Lake 
George. Agents of the French had been at work 
among the northwestern Indians all winter, persuad- 
ing them to join a great war party against the Eng- 
lish, and the July of 1757 found a thousand of these 
savages gathered in Canada, in addition to a number 



44 
of mission Indians from Maine and from Montreal^ 
to whom Montcalm sung the war song, in the person 
of his aides, who chanted again and again the words, 
"Let us trample the English under our feet." During 
July numbers of sloops, bateaux and canoes were 
busily plying up and down Lake Champlain, moving 
Montcalm's forces to Ticonderoga. At the last of the 
month eight thousand men, two thousand of whom 
were Indians, were assembled here. The French and 
Canadians laboriously dragged boats, cannon and 
stores across the portage, while their Indian allies 
gobbled a week's rations in three days and fell upon 
some cattle designed for the French army. It was "a 
St. Bartholomew of the oxen," as one French officer 
said. The western Indians busied themselves in 
"making medicine" to insure success, and all joined 
in frequent war dances, where the warriors, painted 
with Vermillion, white, green, yellow and a black 
made of the scrapings of kettles and applied with the 
aid of bear's grease, their scalp locks adorned with 
feathers, their ears split and weighted until they 
reached their shoulders, and knives suspended 
around their necks, danced through the assembly, 
holding up some animal's head, to represent the head 
of the enemy, and boasting of their own prowess. A 
party of one hundred and thirty of the Indians under 
Marin, a French leader, penetrated the woods as far 
as Fort Edward and returned with thirty scalps, 
which, however, it was afterwards found, represented 
only eleven men, the Indians having learned the art 
of subdividing these trophies, since they brought a 
good price in Canada. At another time three hun- 



45 

dred English soldiers, most of whom were from New 
Jersey and little used to Indian warfare, descended 
Lake George and were ambushed by the Indians at 
Sabbathday Point, where the savages fired on them 
at short range and then darted out and pursued them 
in their swift canoes. The frightened Jerseymen 
were overtaken. Many of them leaped into the water 
where they were speared like fish, and others were 
overtaken in the woods by their fleet-footed pursuers. 
Two hundred out of the three hundred were killed or 
captured, and the bodies of the dead floated for some 
time on the waters of the lake or lay along its shores. 
The Indians were afterwards discovered by a horri- 
fied priest making a meal of one of these poor fellows. 
The prisoners met a happier fate, for when they were 
taken by the French to be sent to Canada their In- 
dian masters stipulated that they should be shod and 
fed on white bread, having an eye, no doubt, to the 
ransom which they could extract for them from the 
Canadian government. 

It was impossible for the French to put down the 
barbarous practices of the Indians without wounding 
the sensibilities of these touchy sons of the forest and 
losing their aid. Their red allies were indeed a sore 
trouble to the French, and Montcalm found, as Dies- 
kau had before him, that it required the patience of 
an angel to bear with them. They insisted on being 
consulted by the French general as to all his move- 
ments, and often he had to be guided by their 
whims, for the French deemed Indians as important 
in forest warfare as cavalry on the plains. These 
people were now very much puffed up with their 



46 
success at Sabbathday Point and their arrogance be- 
came unbearable. They said the lake was "red with 
the blood of Corlear," for so they called the English, 
and they were determined immediately to return 
home with their strings of scalps, saying that it would 
be tempting the master of life to venture on another 
fight. Montcalm was obliged to hold a council with 
them and bind them to him with an enormous wam- 
pum belt of six thousand beads. On the eve of de- 
parture he would let them have no brandy, and they 
grew uneasy and paddled up Lake George to the 
neighborhood of Sabbathday Point, where they 
amused themselves with killing rattlesnakes. 

There were not boats enough to carry all of the 
army of eight thousand men as well as the cannon, 
stores and provisions, and on the thirtieth of July 
twenty-five hundred men, guided by the Canadian 
Mohawks and under the command of the Chevalier 
de Levis, started up the west shore of the lake on 
foot. They followed an old Indian trail up over 
Rogers' Rock, or Bald Mountain, as it was then called, 
and through the almost impenetrable forests and 
well-nigh impassible mountains of the Narrows to 
the mouth of Ganouske, or Northwest, Bay, where 
they halted to wait for the main army. The weather 
was so hot and the march so rough that two officers 
broke down by the way. 

At two o'clock in the afternoon of the first day of 
August, the main army embarked and began to 
ascend the lake. As the fleet rounded Anthony's 
Nose it was struck by one of those summer squalls 
common to this mountain lake, and the boats were 



47 
forced to lie by under the shelter of the point until 
it was over. Deluged with rain, the French then 
pushed on, and as they neared Sabbathday Point 
the deserted boats and the mutilated bodies of the 
English who had been routed here by the Indians, 
could be seen cast up upon the shores. At Isle a la 
Barque, or Harbor Island, the Indians were resting 
from their snake hunt and awaiting them. These 
savages, one thousand in number, in one hundred 
and fifty birch bark canoes, took the lead; then came 
hundreds of bateaux, or large, flat-bottomed boats 
loaded with soldiery, all in line, as though marching 
on land; next the siege cannon and mortars, each on 
a platform resting upon two bateaux and rowed by 
militia, followed by provision boats, the field hospital 
and last of all a guard of French soldiers. Never 
was there a finer pageant than this army, gay with 
banners, brilliant costumes and savage bravery, as it 
floated slowly through the Narrows on the night of 
the first and second of August, 1757. This fleet of 
boats rounded Tongue Mountain in the early morn- 
ing and made for the Bolton shore, guided by a tri- 
angle of fire built on the mountain side by the Chev- 
alier de Levis as a signal. They came to land on or 
near the site of the present village of Bolton, the men 
cooked their food and rested and a council was held. 
At ten o'clock Levis set forth again on the march 
along the shore, and Montcalm's army broke camp 
at noon and embarking advanced to Great Sandy 
Bay, as Basin Bay was then called, where it halted 
once more, until six o'clock, when all advanced to 



48 
the small bay opposite Diamond Island, where Can- 
non Point hid them from Fort William Henry. 

THE SIEGE OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 

It was impossible that an army should have gather- 
ed at Ticonderoga and the garrison at Fort William 
Henry remain ignorant of the fact. General Webb, 
who was in command of all the forces on the New 
York frontier, hearing of Fort William Henry's dan- 
ger, came up from Fort Edward, a few days before the 
arrival of the French, and the enemy heard at Ticon- 
deroga the discharges of cannon with which the gar- 
rison greeted him on his arrival. After inspecting 
the works he returned to Fort Edward where he wrote 
to ask for the militia and sent a thousand men from 
his garrison to aid in the defense of Lake George. He 
was left with sixteen hundred men at Fort Edward 
and eight hundred more at the various carrying places 
on the Hudson and at Albany. He was not a man of 
great activity or courage and easily persuaded himself 
that it was his duty to remain at Fort Edward and pro- 
tect the lower country. 

Col. Monroe, the brave Scotchman who command- 
ed at Lake George, had now twenty-two hundred men 
with which to defend this post. Most of these men 
were encamped back of the present Fort William 
Henry Hotel, on the rise of ground where the Catho- 
lic Church now stands. There was a well entrenched 
camp on the hill where Fort George was afterwards 
built to which the men would retire for greater secur- 
ity in case of a siege and from this point relieve each 



49 
other in guarding the fort. The fort itseh" stood on 
the east side of and in the grounds of the present hotel 
of the same name and directly overlooks the marsh 
and the beach where the modern railroad station now 
stands. Its earthern embankments, which may be 
tracked to this day, formed an irregular square with 
bastions and were surmounted with parallel walls 
built of pine logs and tilled in with earth. Connected 
with the fort was a farm which occupied the present 
grounds of the Fort William Henry Hotel and extend- 
ed for some distance across and beyond the Plank 
Road of our day. For half a mile around, to the very 
foot of the mountains, indeed, the noble first growth 
pines had been cut down, that they might not shelter 
a lurking foe, and lay pell-mell, as they had fallen, a 
well-nigh impenetratable mass. The Fort Edward 
road ended at the lake shore, about at the middle of 
the beach, and still exists in a neighborhood road 
which runs between the Fort George hill and the site 
of the Battle of Lake George. The fort w as defended 
on the north by the lake, on the east by the marsh 
which the present railroad partly occupies, and on 
the south and west by "chevaux-de-frise. ' ' On its ram- 
parts were seventeen cannon, some swivels and mor- 
tars; within its wall was the smallpox, a silent enemy 
which preyed upon armies in those days. 

At ten o'clock on the night of the second of August 
two boats put off from the fort on a scouting expedi- 
tion. The men had rowed down the lake to the 
neighborhood of Diamond Island when their atten- 
tion was attracted by a strange object against the 
west shore. It was in fact an awning over a boat in 



50 
which were the French priests, and about and behind 
it were the whole French army. To approach too 
near was certain death, but the scouts pushed onward, 
curious to know what it might be. They were com- 
ing every moment nearer and a thousand Indians 
were lying in wait for them, when there arose a 
plaintive bleating from a sheep confined on a French 
provision boat. The scouting party suddenly turned 
at the warning sound and made for the east shore. 
Instantly the death yell rang through the air, from 
something like a thousand savage throats, and innum- 
erable canoes sped out from shore. For many min- 
utes there was a breathless chase The Indians sped 
on until they saw that the English were likely to 
make the other shore and escape when at last they 
lired upon them. The pursued men returned the fire 
as they pulled on for their lives. The Indians killed 
several of them in the end and captured three. The 
remainder escaped to the woods of the east shore. 
The prisoners gave Montcalm valuable information 
of the position and plans of the garrison; the fugitives 
made their way through the woods to the fort and 
warned the English of the approach of the enemy. 

That night there was mourning among the Indians. 
A Nippising chief had been killed in the fray. His 
tribesmen dressed him in the most magnificent of 
savage costumes, loaded him with necklaces of por- 
celain beads, adorned him with nose and ear pend- 
ants, put silver bracelets on his arms, hung a gorget 
by a scarlet ribbon at his throat, concealed the pallid 
hue of death on his face with the most brilliant 
paints, placed a pipe in his mouth, a tomahawk at 



51 
his belt, a lance in his hand, rested his gun in the 
hollow of his stiffened arm and deposited a kettle 
filled with food at his side. The dead chief, thus 
attired, was seated upon a little grassy eminence 
while his friends surrounded him listening to the 
funeral oration, dancing a solemn dance, to the tink- 
ling of small bells, and finally burying him as he sat, 
well equipped, as they thought, for the journey to 
another world. 

At two o'clock the firing of a cannon at Fort Wil- 
liam Henry broke on the stillness of the night air 
and announced that the garrison was warned of the 
presence of the enemy. Indian scouts brought word 
that the English were in motion, Montcalm, on the 
chance that they might be coming to attack him, 
formed his army for battle. At daybreak the French 
marched in three colunnis up the west shore, while 
the Indians approached the fort by water, their can- 
oes making a line from shore to shore. The artillery 
as it rounded Cannon Point fired a salute to the 
doomed fort. 

The English tents might still be seen standing on 
the high ground behind the fort, but the garrison was 
busy striking them and burning their huts, that these 
might afford the enem no shelter, gathering in their 
horses and cattle from the woods and skirmishing 
with the Indians, who began to hover around them. 
Montcalm thought of making an assault on the 
entrenched camp at Fort George hill, and he marched 
his army around to the eastward of this spot. The 
English, with the exception of those on duty in the 
fort, were now collected at this point, and the men 



52 
could be heard busily stieiigthening the works, which 
were defended by six cannon in addition to those in 
the fort. Montcalm stood not far from the spot where 
Dieskau had been defeated, and his final decision was 
not to risk the men so sorely needed for the de- 
fense of Canada in an assault. He chote instead the 
site of the present village of Caldwell for a regular 
siege. He gradually withdrew his main army to the 
farther side of the little ravine north of Caldwell now 
known as Brink's Hollow and encamped on land 
afterwards included in the grounds of the mansion 
house of James Caldwell, leaving a body of Indians 
and Canadians encamped on the Fort Edward road 
to cut off all communication with that post. 

On the first day of the siege Montcalm summoned 
the garrison to surrender, wath the usual threat of 
the French that the Indians might become unman- 
ageable in case they were irritated by a stubborn 
resistance. While the flags of truce were flying these 
braves scattered over the fort fields, and when Monro 
made answer that he should defend the post to the 
last and discharged all his cannon to make his reply 
the more emphatic, a chief shouted back to the fort, 
in broken French: "You won't surrender, eh! Fire 
away, then, and fight your best, for if I catch you 
I shall give you no quarter!" 

The next day, which was the fourth of August, the 
last of the French troops were withdrawn to the camp 
north of the little hollow, and Levis' men, besides 
scouting on the Fort Edward road, were ordered to 
appear here and there about the fort in a very active 
manner, that the English might think themselves 



surrounded. In reality it was impossible to com- 
pletely surround Fort William Henr}- without a much 
larger army, though the garrison was indeed invested 
with inaccessible woods and abandoned to its fate by 
those who might have succored it. The French, 
however, knew nothing of this. They believed that 
Webb had six thousand men at Fort Edward. When 
night came on the cannon were landed at the spot 
still known as Artillery Cove, and trenches were 
opened for the siege. Eiglit hundred men worked 
hard all night, sawing and chopping up the great 
trees left lying on the ground and digging out the 
stumps and roots before they could work in the soil 
itself. Cannon ball and shells from the fort guns 
flew above and around them and occasionally a man 
was wounded. Pieces of these shells and the remains 
of the siege works are still found in the gardens of 
Caldwell. So well did the men work that morning 
found them delving under cover from the guns of the 
fort, except at the battery on the extreme right, 
where the ground was very difficult. Some soldiers 
were killed in the camp on the mansion house 
grounds and Montcalm moved two regiments from the 
lake shore on this account. 

At four o'clock on this third day of the siege mes- 
sengers came to Montcalm with word that two thou- 
sand men were marching up the Fort Edward road 
to the relief of Fort AVilliam Henry. The French 
general immediately sent a portion of his army to the 
aid of Levis, but the two thousand men proved to be 
one poor messenger, who was killed by the Indians. 
His vest, containing a letter concealed in a hollow 



54 
musket ball, was brought to Montcalm. The letter 
was from the English general, Webb, to Colonel 
Monro, and Montcalm read in it, what must have been 
news to him, that the French army was thirteen 
thousand strong, besides the fact that Webb could do 
nothing for Monro until the militia arrived. It ad- 
vised him to make the best terms he could. This 
letter, while it encouraged the French, caused Mont- 
calm to hurry on the work in the trenches that he 
might capture the fort before the colonial militia 
should march to its relief. 

Many of the Indians were idling about their canoes 
or amusing themselves with firing into the fields of 
the fort and killing the horses and cattle belonging to 
the garrison, a kind of warfare greatly to their taste, 
while they did not hesitate to express their discon- 
tent that the "big guns" of the French were still 
silent. To remedy these matters, Montcalm called 
them to a council and reproved them for not aiding 
in the guarding of the Fort Edward road as he wished 
them to do. They replied that they had also some- 
thing on their hearts, which was that their French 
father had had the assurance to go on with the siege 
without consulting them. Montcalm explained that 
he had been too hurried to do so, and cleared their 
sight, cleansed their hearts and restored their senses 
in the approved Indian manner with two belts and 
ten strings of wampum. This ceremony performed, 
the Indians promised to do as Montcalm" wished, and 
he told them what was written in General Webb's 
letter and informed them that the ''big guns" would 
begin their work the next day. 

On the morning of the sixth of August the first 



55 

French battery of eight cannon and one mortar was 
unmasked. Amid the yells and whoops of the Indians 
several rounds were fire^ and then the guns played 
every two minutes upon the lake and garden sides of 
the fort, the English answering with a brisk fire and 
the savages making the mountains resound with their 
cries of joy whenever it chanced that the French 
guns did some evident execution. 

The next day at six o'clock in the morning the 
second battery was opened on the right. The two 
batteries joined in firing a salute on the arrival of 
Montcalm in the trenches. Both batteries then 
played an hour upon the fort and after a double salute 
from all the guns, accompanied by a deal of Indian 
whooping Montcalm dispatched one of his aides to 
the fort with the letter of General Webb which he 
had captured two days before. He was urged to this 
by the Indians, who thought that its discouraging 
tone would induce the garrison to surrender. Monro, 
however, merely thanked Montcalm for his polite- 
ness and said that he meant to make a gallant de- 
fense. The cannon opened fire once more on both 
sides and the Indians made the mountains ring when- 
ever a shell fell within the fort. These fellows were 
far from sticking to their hum-drum task of guarding 
the Fort Edward road. They were everywhere, and 
they admired so much the French manner of digging 
covered passageways that they imitated them, digging 
small pits outside the lines, from which they picked 
off the gunners at the fort. 

At three o'clock in the afternoon of this same day, 
which was the seventh of August and the fourth of 



56 
the siege, five hundred of the EngHsli made a sortie 
and tried to establish a post on the Fort Edward road, 
but they were driven back with a loss of fifty men. 

All the time the work went on in the trenches, 
which were rapidly approaching the fort. Two 
cowards deserted from the garrison, but when they 
approached the French lines through the fort garden, 
now the grounds of the Fort William Henry Hotel, 
some Indians who lay on their stomachs in advance 
of the French approaches fired upon them and in- 
stantly all the mountains about the lake echoed with 
the yells of the savages. The Fi-ench thought that 
the English had intended to make a sortie and were 
discouraged by these fearful whoops, but it is more 
likely that they disheartened deserters. 

The French siege works had now reached the edge 
of a small swamp which divided. them from the gar- 
dens of the fort, filled in that day with cat-tails and 
swamp grasses, but now known as Welch's Hollow, 
much of which has been filled up in improving the 
hotel grounds and building the Plank Road. Although 
it was morning and the men unprotected from the 
fire of the fort such was the haste of Montcalm that 
he ordered a bridge to be built across the hollow 
capable of bearing cannon. This was done by laying 
hurdles of hollow squares made of logs and fascines, 
or bundles of sticks, on the marsh, and building a 
sort of corduroy road on them. By afternoon the 
French had made a lodgment in the very gardens 
of the fort and the Indians crept ahead of them among 
the beans and corn and picked off men on the ram- 
parts. One brave even killed and scalped a woman 



57 
who had salUed forth in search of vegetables. It was 
on this same day, the eighth, that a panic-stricken 
Indian saw the glitter of arms upon one of the moun- 
tains and hurried to camp with the news. Instantly 
the whole French camp was in motion, a portion to 
repel the relief coming by way of the mountains and 
the remainder to protect the French intrenchments. 
The English, in their fortified camp on Fort George 
hill, were seen to be in motion, and the cannon were 
ordered to fire high that the balls might reach this 
spot and prevent them marching out to the aid of the 
relieving party. In fact there was no relief coming 
and tlie English were only making ready to receive 
the French, for when they saw them on the march 
they supposed that it was to attack them. 

THE FALL OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 

The next night the English fired long and briskly 
on the French as they labored hard in the fort garden 
to throw up works. The chance of dislodging them 
was the last hope of the garrison, and this failed, for 
by the morning of the ninth of August and the sixth 
day of the siege thirty-two French cannon were ready 
to open at short range on the walls of the fort, which 
were already pretty well battered down. Its large 
guns, which were of poor metal, were all burst or dis- 
abled, and but seven small cannon remained with 
which to answer the combined batteries of the be- 
sieging army. The French might now easily surround 
the doomed post, separate it from the entrenched 
camp on Fort George hill and when a breach had 
been made in its wall take it by assault, when all the 



58 
horrors of an Indian massacre would be certain to 
follow. On the morning of August ninth the officers 
held a council, at which it was agreed that the only 
course left was to surrender while good terms might 
yet be demanded. At seven o'clock a white flag was 
hoisted, a drum beat and an English officer with a 
wounded foot issued from the gate of the fort and 
rode to the French lines on horseback. Tlie garrison 
demanded to be allowed to march out with the hon- 
ors of war and retire to Fort Edward. It was not 
diflScult to make terms with Montcalm, for Canada 
had done so much fighting and so little farming dur- 
ing the war that her people were well-nigh starved 
and wanted no more mouths to feed. It was agreed 
that the garrison should march out of the fort with 
arms and baggage, should be escorted to Fort Edward 
by a body of French troops, should not serve in the 
war again for eighteen months and that all French 
prisoners of war should be returned to Canada in 
their stead. Before concluding the terms Montcalm 
took care to call a council of the Indians, consult 
them and exact a promise from them that they would 
prevent their young men from doing the English any 
harm. 

THE MASSACRE OF LAKE GEORGE. 

The garrison of Fort William Henry now hurriedly 
packed their baggage, Montcalm sent men to guard 
the ammunition and provisions, which were very 
precious to the French at this time, and caused all 
the barrels of rum and wine to be staved in; it being 
thought best to leave the remaining plunder to the 



59 
Indians. Some sick men still lay in the infected case- 
n:iates of the fort, neglected by friends and shnnned 
by foes because they were ill of the smallpox. At 
twelve o'clock the garrison of Fort William Henry 
marched out. While the ceremonies of capitulation 
were going on without the fort Indians climbed in 
through the casemates and their first act was to mur- 
der the sick whom they found there. Father Rou- 
beaud, an Indian missionary among the French, w-as 
horrified to see one brave come forth from the fort 
bearing the bleeding head of one of his victims and 
parading it as the most valuable of prizes. The gar- 
rison, fearing the Indians, begged a French guard, 
which was granted, and under its protection marched 
"in beautiful order" over to the entrenched camp on 
Fort George hill. The Indians hung around, sullen 
and discontented. To return without scalps, captives 
and plunder w^as to them a dismal prospect. Young 
braves felt that they were robbed of the honors and 
rewards due them, for they expected no other pay 
for their services. They dug up the dead and scalped 
them, and when later at their homes in the north- 
west they fell a prey to the smallpox concluded that 
the revengeful English had cast some spell upon 
them. When they had robbed the fort of its poor 
pickings of plunder and scalps they pushed insolently 
into the entrenched camp, where the French stood 
guard over the fallen garrison, wandered about feeling 
the long hair of the cowering women, and terrifying 
the children among the prisoners. Presently they 
began to plunder the camp chests of the English 
officers, who vigorously resisted them. Things had 



60 
an ugly look. The French guard T\-as alarmed. A 
messenger was sent to the French camp for Montcahn. 
He prayed, threatened and caressed; he called on the 
Canadian officers and interpreters to aid him in pre- 
venting a massacre, 

"Detestable position!" his aide cried, "of which no 
one who has not seen it can have any idea and which 
makes victory itself a sorrow to the victors." 

At last, hy nine o'clock at night the French gen- 
eral had restored order, had induced the Indians to 
promise to send some of their chiefs to Fort Edward 
with the English as a guard and had ordered the 
Canadian officers among the Indians to prevent fur- 
ther mischief. 

The English spent an uneasy night. Neither they 
nor the Indians slept. The latter hovered around 
their prey, begging rum of the English, who, willing 
to appease them, freely gave it from their canteens. 
Seventeen wounded men lay in huts in the camp. 
The day before the English surgeon turned them over 
to the French surgeon, who had placed a guard over 
them. For some reason this guard was removed, or 
deserted its post, and at five o'clock in the morning 
the Indians dragged these poor wretches from their 
pallets and murdered them. This added to the terror 
of the garrison. Men^ women and children gathered 
together in haste to be gone. The Indians crowded 
around them and began to snatch their baggage from 
them. Monro complained to the Canadian officers. 
They advised him to give up the baggage to the sav- 
ages. But nothing appeased the Indians. Their 
greedy eyes were upon everything portable. They 



61 
demanded food, ctothing — all they saw — "in a tone 
which announced that the thrust of a .spear would be 
the jjrice of a refusal." The frightened men complied 
with all their requests, stripping themselves of their 
very clothing if they might but purchase their lives. 
The French guard of four hundred men now arrived 
on the scene and hastily arranged themselves in 
order, while the garrison fell into rank and marched 
out of the entrenchments. As they filed out the 
Indians saw with greedy eyes their prey escaping. 
The Abenakis from Maine, Indians who had been 
converts for many years, but who were none the less 
inhuman at heart, had a grudge against the English 
colonists which called for i-evenge. It was their sharp 
hatchets which first fell upon those who from illness 
or any other cause straggled from the ranks, and 
other Indians soon followed their example, A num- 
ber of lifeless bodies were speedily strewn about the 
ground, and heavy blows fell right and left on all 
within reach, and especially on the New Hampshire 
regiment Vv^hich brought up the rear. A halt was 
ordered, but when those in front learned the cause 
they pushed on again in confusion. The butchery 
was soon over. Either the non-resistance of the 
helpless garrison, which had arms but no ammuni- 
tion, or the greed of the Indians, who could get a 
better price for a prisoner than a scalp, changed the 
massacre into a scramble for captives. ' 'The son 
was snatched from a father's arms, the daughter torn 
from the bosom of her mother, the husband separated 
from his wife, the officers stripped to their shirts;" 
and ''a crowd of unhappy beings were running about 



62 
at random, some toward the woods, others toward 
the tents of the French," and many toward the fort. 
The Canadian officers were either heartless or help- 
less in this emergency and told those who ran to 
them for protection to fly to the woods. The French 
guard seemed lost among so many bloodthirsty sav- 
ages mingled as they were with their helpless victims. 
Levis ran in all directions trying to quell the tumult. 
A French sergeant was killed by the blow of a spear in 
trj'ing to defend the English, and another officer was 
gravely wounded. The main French army was at 
too great a distance to be of any avail, and INIontcalm 
only arrived on the scene after the butchery was over 
and while the Indians were still rushing madly here 
and there in pursuit of captives. To use the words 
•of an eye witness, he ''multiplied himself, he was 
every w^here; prayers, menaces, promises, were used; 
he tried everything and at last resorted to force." He 
wrested the nephew of an English colonel from the 
hands of a warrior, and immediately a number of 
other Indians, preferring a scalp to nothing, murder- 
ed their prisoners. The tumult increased until some 
one thought of calling to the garrison, which still 
made a compact body, to increase their speed. They 
needed no second hint. Never was a double-quick 
march made in better time. The Indians were by 
this time laden with spoils and could not easily pur- 
sue. Some retired and the others were dispersed by 
the Frenchmen. About fifty were killed in this 
massacre and six or seven hundred taken captive. 
The van reached Fort Edward in some order, but 
many others, fleeing through the woods, half naked 



63 
and nearly famished, only found their destination by 
aid of the fort guns which were kept booming to guide 
them in. Numbers had fled to the French camp and 
to Fort William Henry for protection, where Monro 
had gone at the first of the trouble to make com- 
plaints. 

Father Roubeaud, who had witnessed the massacre, 
repaired to the fort immediately after, and there he 
.was surrounded bj' a crowd of weeping women, who 
kissed the hem of his robe and begged with j)iercing 
cries for news of their husbands and children. The 
good priest was touched to the heart but knew not 
what to do for them. A French officer presently 
came to him and told him that in the camp was a 
Huron Indian who had captured a baby of six 
months, and implored him to save it. Father Rou- 
beaud, glad to be able to relieve at least one of the 
sufferers, ran to the cabin of the Huron. He found 
the child in the arms of the savage, "tenderly kissing" 
his hands and playing with his porcelain beads. The 
good father began by praising the valor of the Huron 
people, but the Indian immediately guessed his object 
and said: 

"Hold! Do you see this baby? I have not stolen 
it. I found it left behind in haste. You want it but 
you shall not have it." 

Roubeaud told him that the tiny prisoner was use- 
less to him and would certainly die for want of proper 
food. The Huron i3roduced some fat and said he 
would feed the baby that, and if it did die he would 
bury it in some corner of ground and the priest might 
then say all the prayers he pleased over it. The 



64 
father offered a good sum in silver for the child, but 
the Indian refused. At last the fellow demanded 
another English prisoner in exchange for the baby, 
and Father Eoubeaud would have undertaken to pro- 
vide one had not some other Indians come in, with 
whom the Huron held a consultation, at which it was 
finally agreed that the priest should have the child 
in exchange for an English scalp. 

"It shall be forthcoming!" cried the good priest, 
"if you are a man of honor," and he hastened off to 
the camp of his Abenaki disciples and asked the first 
Indian he met if he had any scalps and if he would 
do him a favor. The fellow, with a savage's gener- 
osity, immediately untied his scalp pouch and gave 
Eoubeaud his choice. The priest selected a scalp, 
and, followed by a curious crowd of French and Can- 
adians, ran to the tent of the Huron, "joy," in his 
own words, seeming "to furnish" him "wings." 

■*'See!" cried he, addressing the Huron, "see your 
payment. ' ' 

"You are right!" said the savage nurse, examining 
the scalp with the eye of a connoisseur, "it is indeed 
an English scalp, for it is red. Well, there is the 
child; carry it away, for it belongs to you." 

Fearing the Indian might change his mind, the 
good father hurried off with the baby, wrapping it 
in his robe, for it was almost naked, the little crea- 
ture crying by the way at his unaccustomed handling. 
He carried the baby to Fort William Henry, w^here 
all the women ran to him when they heard the wail- 
ings of the child, hoping to find their own lost babies. 
But none of them recognized it, and they all retired, 



65 
weeping afresh over their own losses. This left 
Father Eoubeaud in an embarrassing position. The 
baby seemed as likely to die in his hands as in those 
of the Huron. He was trying to think what he should 
do, when an English officer who spoke Frencli 
approached, and the priest told him his trouble. 

"Sir," said Eoubeaud, '*I have just ransomed ti is 
young infant from slavery, but it will not escape 
death unless you direct some one of these women to 
take the place of its mother and nurse it, until I shall 
be able to provide for it otherwise. ' ' 

The English officer found a woman who consented 
to go to Canada as nurse to the baby if the priest 
would answer for her life and that of her husband 
and promise to send them back to Boston. 

Father Roubeaud agreed to do all this, and guard- 
ing the woman, her husband and the baby, with an 
escort of three grenadiers, took them to the Canadian 
camp on the Fort Edward road, where he lodged. 
Scarcely had the party reached this spot when a 
piercing cry arose and a woman came running toward 
them. She snatched the child from the arms of its 
new nurse and abandoned herself to transports of 
joy, for she was the mother of the baby. Roubeaud 
had the pleasure afterwards of reuniting the whole 
family, for he found the father of the child suffering 
from a wound made by the bursting of a shell, and 
he led the wife to his side in a lonely part of the fort 
where he had crawled on account of his pains. The 
woman who had agreed to act as nurse to the little 
captive afterwards found her own baby, who was 



66 
restored to her through the kindnes? of a French 
officer. 

Montcahn meanwhile was busy rescuing as many 
of the English prisoners as possible. IXiring the day 
he gathered together about four hundred of them. 
These poor creatures were so stripped of their cloth- 
ing that the French geneial was obliged to buy it 
back of the savages wdio had plundered them. Some 
Indians, seized with contrition, voluntarily brought 
their captives to him^ raying that they had had no 
sense. Others hastened dow^n the lake with their 
prisoners, and at Montreal got a good price for them, 
the French being bound in honor to ransom them 
and return them to their country. Montcalm sent 
all the fugitives that he could collect to Fort Edward 
vfith a strong guard, which was hardly needed now 
as the Indians had sped away to their homes to dec- 
orate their wigw^ams with subdivided ecalps, boast of 
their exploits and suffer from the smallpox. 

The massacre of Lake George cost the French much 
of the fruits of their victory, and cast a stain on their 
honor, which, however unjust it might have been, 
w^as painful to them. The English, claiming that the 
capitulation had been broken, refused to return the 
French prisoners or detain the garrison of the fort 
from further fighting, as had been agreed. 

The first exaggerated accounts of the massacre and 
the rumor that Montcalm was advancing against Fort 
Edward and Albany struck terror to the hearts of the 
garrison at the former place, and had Montcalm ap- 
peared he w^ould, perhaps, have won an easy victory 
at Fort Edward. It was expected in Canada that he 



67 
would do so. But the facts are that he had no wagons 
(jr horses, his Indians were gone and he had sent his 
Canadians home that they might reap the harvests so 
sorely needed in Canada. Many of his men mean- 
while were occupied in destroying Fort William 
Henry; others were plying up and dawn the lake 
transporting the valuable stores taken with the fort 
to Ticonderoga, and he felt himself in no conditioin 
to make a successful resistance should the enemy 
march to Lake George against him, for he knew 
nothing of the faint-hearted character of their general* 
Fort William Henry was razed to the ground, its 
wooden walls were thrown into a great heap and 
burned, the dead bodies in its casemates and under- 
ground passages feeding for days the flames of this 
immense bonfire. Seven days after the capitulation, 
having hidden stores of cannon balls and sunk some 
boats he w^as unable to carry off, Montcalm was on 
his way down the lake. He left one battalion encamp- 
ed on an island, probably Diamond Island, until the 
return of the boats, when they were brought off, and 
Lake George was once more a wilderness, scarred 
with siege works and the ruins of a fort and sown 
with the dead. 

THE BATTLE OF ROGERS' ROCK. 

During the winter of 1758 Fort Edward was the 
English advance post and the headquarters of Rogers 
and his rangers, who did their best to plague the 
French at Ticonderoga. Once they spent the night 
among the ruins of Fort William Henry, where they 
found a heap of charred logs and rafters and frag- 



ments of exploded cannon covered with a new fallen 
snow. These rough fellows stopped for a moment to 
mournfully recall how they had here enjoyed "manj^ 
of the pleasures of a soldier's life," before camping 
under the edge of the earthworks for shelter from a 
biting wind which was tearing up the lake. The 
sharp eyes of Rogers foiind some of the hidden can- 
non balls and discovered the sunken boats, of which 
he took note, that they might be recovered. So active 
were these rangers that they well-nigh drove the 
^commandant at Ticonderoga distracted, for they in- 
vaded the very ditches of the fort, took prisoners^ 
burnt wood piles and butchered cattle, to the horns 
of one of which they once left tied an ironical note, 
signed by Rogers^ in which he thanked the French 
officer for the fresh meat that he had enjoyed and 
sent his compliments to the Marquis de Montcalm. 
About the middle of March, 1758, Rogers was sent 
scouting by the commander at Fort Edward, with a 
body of one hundred and eighty men. He encamped 
the first night at Halfway Brook, so named because 
it crossed the Lake George road midway between 
that body of water and Fort Edward. The next day 
he marched up the road to the head of Lake George 
and down the lake on the ice to the beginning of the 
Narrows. He encamped for the night on the east 
shore, setting sentinels at intervals on land and 
keeping men walking on the frozen lake all night for 
fear of a surprise. The whole party resumed their 
march at sunrise of the next day. A dog running 
across the ice alarmed Rogers, who feared that Ind- 
ians were near, and he withdrew his men to the 



60 
Moods, where they donned snovvshoes and laboi-ed 
along over four feet of snow to the neighborhood of 
Sabbathday Point, where they all rested until night, 
when they again took to the ice. An advance guard 
of skaters was sent out, while the main body marched 
on through the darkness, hugging the west shore and 
dmgging toboggans loaded with their provisions. 
When the party was within eight miles of the lower 
end of the lake a messenger came skating back from 
the advance guai-d telling Rogers to halt. The men 
prompth' sat down on the ice, and Phillips, who 
commanded the advance-, presently came up with 
the news that he had seen a fire on the east shore^ 
Rogers immediately hid his baggage in a thicket and 
leaving a small guard with it marched to the east 
shore in search of the fire. It was not, however, to 
be found, and concluding that Phillips had mistaken 
patches of snow or i)hosphorescent wood for fire, he 
returned to his toboggans and camped there. The 
fire had in fact been a real one, built by some French 
scouts, who when they had descried the dark, mov- 
ing objects on the ice, quickly extinguished it and 
returned to Fort Ticonderoga, where they gave 
warning of Rogers' stolen march. At Ticonderoga a 
party of two hundrdd Indians and a number of Cana* 
dians and French volunteers was immediately made 
up to march against the pestilential Rogers. 

Ignorant that the enemy was warned, Rogers took 
up his march, the next day, through the woods back 
of the mountains on the west shore. The advance to 
avoid the deep snow took its way along the frozeri 
surface of Trout Brook while the other party on snow» 



70 
'shoes kept under the edge of the mountain. It chanced 
that the French and Indians had chosen this same 
■stream for their approach from Ticonderoga. It was 
three o'clock in the afternoon and Eogers was about 
west of the mountain which bears his name when 
his advance discovered some ninety Indians coming 
toward them on the icy surface of the Httle stream. 
Eogers, who was on rising ground, immediately faced 
his men toward the brook and when the Indians 
came up opened fire on them. A number of them 
fell and the rest fled, about half of Eogers' men rush- 
ing off in pursuit. They cut down several of the fugi- 
tives with hatchets and cutlasses, but they suddenly 
found themselves face to face with a large force of 
soldiers who chased them back to Eogers' position, 
killing fifty of them by the way. Though Eogers' 
party numbered now only about one hundred and 
thirty men and the French and Indians were twice 
or three times as numerous, he made a stubborn 
resistance. His men occupied a rising ground and 
sheltered themselves behind trees where they fought 
gallantly until suns(3t. Again and again the French 
tried to get in his rear, and failed. At last two hun- 
dred of the enemy began ascending the mountain on 
his right for this purpose. Eogers hurried forward 
Lieutenant Phillijis and eighteen men to occupy this 
spot before them, but it was too late. Phillips was 
surrounded, the men in Eogers' front were becoming 
intermingled with the enemy, and one hundred and 
eight of them had fallen, when at last the remnant 
broke and fled, each man looking out for himself. 
Phillips and his men surrendered on promise of good 



71 

treatment, but they had better have fought till the 
last man was killed, for the Indians, furious over the 
losses which they had sustained, tied them to trees 
and hacked them to pieces. 

ROGERS' SLIDE. 

There was the usual chase. The wounded and 
fatigued fell an easy prey to the Indians, Rogers, 
followed by about twenty men, ran up the mountain, 
stopping from time to time to fire upon the pursuers. 
It is at this point that the legend comes in which 
connected the name of the bold ranger leader forever 
with Lake George. Rogers, it is said, reached the sum- 
mit of this mountain alone in his flight and walking 
to the edge of its immense rocky precipice, 
put his snowshoes on backward and walked back 
to a spot where he could clamber down to the lake, 
thus deceiving the pursuing Indians who when they 
reached the summit of the rock thought by the 
tracks that two men had thrown themselves down it, 
and seeing Rogers below running on the ice conclud- 
ed that there was some work of evil spirits in this 
and gave up the chase. Rogers does not tell this tale 
in his own journal, which is, however, but a bald 
narrative, bare of detail, and in which he was evi- 
dently anxious to represent himself as making as 
orderly a retreat as possible. The name of the rock 
bears testimony to the early belief in the truth of the 
story. 

Rogers and the few remaining fugitives soon found 
one another on the wide expanse of the frozen lake. 
There were a few wounded men among them when 



72 
they got together at the place where they had hidden 
their toboggans. A messenger was dispatched to 
Fort Edward for help, and the fugitives spent a 
cheerless night, without fire or blankets, the latter 
having been left with their knapsacks on the field of 
battle. The wounded suffered much, but did not 
complain. The next day they all made their way 
down to Hoop (probably Dome) Island, and here 
they were met by a relief party from Fort Edward. 
The French rejoiced in the idea that Rogers' had been 
killed, for his overcoat and papers were found on the 
battlefield ; but they found to their cost, six weeks 
later, that he was still living and ranging when he 
paid them a visit in his old style, killing one man 
and taking three prisoners, almost under the walls of 
Crown Point. 

THE BATTLE OF TICONDEROGA. 

By the year 1758 the great English minister, Pitt, 
was in power, and he planned vigorous attacks upon 
Canada from various points. One of the'?e was to be 
directed against Ticonderoga, the history of which 
comes within the province of the story of Lake 
George, as its very existence as a fortress growls out 
of its command of the northern entrance to this lake. 
By the conquest of Ticonderoga and by thus gaining 
control of Lake Champlain and its outlet into the St. 
Lawrence, Pitt hoped to cut Canada in two. 
The command of this expedition was given to General 
Abercromby, a heavy and dull man, but with him 
was associated a young nobleman, Lord Howe, who 
was to be the real leader. Lord Howe's rivals and 
military associates pronounced him the * 'noblest 



Eiiglit^hman of his day" and '^a complete model of 
military virtue." The Americans had long been 
Tery Jealous of English officers, who were prone to 
give themselves airs, and t' eated the former with a 
condescension which sorely wounded their pride, but 
they all loved this young nobleman. One of his vir- 
tues was a power of acconnnodating himself to the 
shifts of a frontier life, common to Frenchmen but 
rare among Englishmen. Lord Howe was so eager 
indeed to learn the conditions of American war that 
he made a friend of the famous Rogers and joined 
him on one of his scouts about Lake George, wearing 
snowshoes, eating Indian meal and sleeping on a 
bearskin in the woods, that he might learn how 
frontiersmen marched, ambushed and retreated. 

In June, 1758, an army of sixteen thousand men 
arrived at the head of Lake George and encamped on 
a spot known as Fort Gage. There were nearly ten 
thousand Americans and over six thousand English 
regular soldiers, w^ho ruefully regarded themselves as 
ridiculous figures, for Lord Howe had made them cut 
off their hair and coattails, wear leather leggings and 
brown the barrels of their polished guns that these 
might not be so readily seen in the woods. Each man 
carried with him thirty pounds of corn meal, and all 
were astonished to discover that in this way an Eng- 
lish army could subsist for a month without the aid 
of a provision train. Officers were allowed no bed 
but a bearskin and no baggage but one small port- 
manteau each. How^e even abolished the women 
camp followers and w^ashed his own linen in a brook, 
as an example to others to do the same. While the 



74 
army was encamped at the head of Lake George he 
one day invited some of the officers to dine in his 
tent. Here they found bearskins for carpets, logs for 
seats, a big dish of pork and beans set on the ground 
for a feast and not the vestige of a plate or knife and 
fork to be seen. The dismayed Englishmen seated 
themselves around the one dish and tried to look 
unconcerned, while Howe took out a pocket knife 
and fork and began to cut up the meat. 

"Is it posvsible, gentlemen," he exclaimed, "that 
you have come on this campaign without providing 
yourselves with what is necessary!" 

Whereupon he presented each one of them with a 
pocket knife and fork in a leather sheath, like his 
own. Before this, English officers had been in the 
habit of burdening the baggage train of an army with 
beds, dishes and delicacies and cumbering the army 
with men and women servants, that they might live 
luxuriously. With such a general, for Lord Howe 
was in fact the general, it is not strange that every- 
thing progressed more rapidly than on former expe- 
ditions at Lake George. On the evening of the fourth 
of July all the stores were loaded in the boats which 
lined the beach, at the head of the lake, and by sun- 
rise of the fifth the men were all embarked — the 
largest army which had ever appeared on Lake 
George. There were nine hundred bateaux, or flat- 
bottomed boats, over thirty feet long, and one hun- 
dred and thirty-five whale boats, loaded to the brim, 
besides a great many heavy flatboats, which carried 
the artillery, and two "floating castles," or batteries. 
The English regular soldiers, in their scarlet coats, 



75 

were in the center, the Americans on either side. It 
was a sparkhng midsummer day; flags were flying, 
brass bands and bagpipes were playing^ bugles blow- 
ing, and the men were in high spirits, thinking they 
had never seen so fine an army nor so lovely a sheet 
of w'ater. For three miles the lake was entirely, as 
it seemed, covered with boats. When the army en- 
tered the Narrows it stretched out in lines, six miles 
long. It w^as late in the afternoon of Saturday when 
the fleet of boats reached Sabbathday Point and made 
a halt. There the men ate and rested, and here Lord 
Howe laid down on a bearskin beside John Stark, the 
ranger^ afterwards the Revolutionary general, and 
learned from him all he knew about Ticonderoga and 
the country around it. 

' It was already after midnight, and Sunday morn- 
ing, when the army embarked once more, and hence 
the name of the point where these sixteen thousand 
men rested. Silently and with muffled oars the 
mighty fleet of boats passed on down the lake, their 
scarlet uniforms bursting suddenly upon the view of 
the French advance guard, j^erched on the summit of 
Rogers' Rock, as the boats came around a point at 
early sunrise. Lord Howe pushed ahead of the army 
in a whaleboat with Rogers and some others to 
reconnoiter the landing place, then known as the 
"Burnt Camp," and not far from the Baldwin of our 
day. He found that the French had but a small 
guard here, and returned to the army to assist it in 
landing. By twelve o'clock the men were all ashore, 
the French had retired and Rogers and his rangers 
were sent ahead to scout and drive away any more of 



the enemy that might be lurking about. The French 
burned, ae they retired, the bridge over the stream 
of the outlet which makes a loop between Lake 
George and the fort, and were encamped within this 
loop, near the falls. It was decided to march the 
English army through the woods, around the loop, to 
avoid the difficulty of crossing in the face of the 
enemy. Divided into four columns, the men began 
their march. Lord Howe, who was only too daring, 
at their head with a body of rangers under Putnam. 
The trees were enormous, the woods were cumbered 
with fallen trunks and the ground was so rough and 
broken near the falls in the stream of the outlet that 
the English ranks, when they reached this point, be- 
came confused. It chanced that the French party 
which had watched the English landing, from Rogers' 
Rock, retired behind the mountains by the way of 
Trout Brook Valley and came out near the stream at 
the same time that the English advance was floun- 
dering over the rocks at this place. 

"Qui etes vous?" cried the French. 

"Francais!" answered the rangers, who had had 
lessons of Rogers, but their pronounciation was pro- 
bably not deceptive, for the veritable French imme- 
diately opened fire. The very first volley killed the 
invaluable and gallant young leader. Lord Howe. A 
panic immediately seized the English, always at a 
loss in the forests of America. "Entire regiments 
flung themselves one atop of the oti er," and General 
Abercromby was near being dragged away by the 
fugitives. The rangers, however, were not so easily 
alarmed. They held their ground, fighting cour- 



ageoush', Rogers, with another body of frontiergineii, 
and the American regiments of Fitcli and Lyman 
coming to their assistance. Caught between the two 
forces, the French fought savagely. Wlien at last 
they broke many plunged into tiie stream at the falls 
and were drowned or shot there. But fifty out of 
three hundred escaped. One hundred and forty-eight 
were captured; the rest were killed. The English 
lost only ten killed and six wounded, but among the 
dead was Lord Howe, the soul of the expedition. 
The Americans mourned hini deepl}', and afterward>« 
wdth their own money raised a monument to him in 
Westminster Abbey, 

General Abercromby, who had well nigh been run 
off with by his own men, kept the army in indecision 
all night in the woods and retired to the landing 
place on Lake Geoi'ge in the morning. Men were set 
to rebuild the bridges destroyed by the French, and 
the English moved forward and occupied the camp 
within the loop of the stream, which had been occu- 
pied by the French until late on the day before, at 
which time Montcalm had decided to retire to the 
high grounds back of Ticonderoga. This fort, known 
as Carillon to the French, was built in the usual man- 
ner of that day of two log walls filled in with earth. 
On the rocky plateau back of the fort the French 
hastily threw up a barricade of logs topped with bags 
of earth and sods. Outside of this they felled a huge 
abbatis of primeval trees with the branches turned 
outward and many of them sharpened. They worked 
hard on their barricade. All they wanted was time, 
and General Abercromby, by his indecision and his 



78 
Tetreat to the landing place to make a new start, gave 
it to them, 

Montcalm, however, felt that he was in a desperate 
situation. He had less than four thousand men, he 
believed that the enemy had twenty or thirty thou- 
sand, his works could not long withstand artillery, 
and there was danger that the English might cut him 
off from Canada by getting between him and Crown 
Point. Abercromb}^, on the other hand, supposed 
that Montcalm was six thousand strong and would 
soon receive large reinforcements. Accordingly he 
decided not to await a regular siege but hasten to 
take Ticonderoga by assault. On the eighth of July, 
after some harmless firing from Indians, who had just 
arrived under Sir William Johnson, the English came 
on, and the French dropped their shovels and axes 
to take up their arms. The English, who approached 
in three columns, became terribly entangled in the 
abbatis and all order was lost. The men pushed on, 
however, but almost all those who approached to 
within fifteen paces of the works were surely killed, 
and some hung dead on the sharpened branches of 
the abbatis. 

The English retired. The French works could not 
be taken at the point of the bayonet, they said. Aber- 
cromby, who was himself well in the rear, ordered 
them on again, and on they went into the mass of 
trees, under the terrific triple fire of an enemy of 
whom they could see nothing but some caps project- 
ing above the sods of the ramparts. They tried one 
point, they tried another; they combined to attack 
the right, the center and the left. To each threaten- 



7v> 
ed point Montcalm, in his shirt sleeves, fof it was 
hot, ran with reinforcements, and the French 
shouted: 

''Vive le roi! Vive notre gene^-al!" and the bullets 
whistled. 

Twenty bateaux were sent down the stream below 
the falls to get around the fort but it's cannon sunk 
two of them and the rest retired. Six times the in- 
domitable courage and the §tupid stubbornness of their 
general flung the English against the French de- 
fenses; for six hours they struggled up in face of a 
murderous fire. Once a French officer in his excite- 
ment tied a handkerchief to his gun and waved it 
in defiance. Some of the English, taking this for a 
sign of surrender, ran forward, holding their muskets 
above their heads and crying, * 'Quarter!" The 
French, supposing in their turn that these men 
wished to surrender, mounted the breastworks to 
receive them, but an officer convinced them that 
they were fooled, when they delivered a volley at 
the English, who thereupon took it all for a bit of 
French deceit. A Rhode Island man named William 
Smith managed to get under the very edge of the 
breastworks, where he contrived to kill several 
Frenchmen. At last they discovered him, and firing 
down on him wounded him gravely; but he sprang 
up nevertheless and brained a Frenchman on the 
other side of the barricade with his hatchet. An Eng- 
lish officer who saw this action sent men to bring 
him off. 

At five o'clock the English made a determined 
assault upon the right of the French, hewing their 



80 
way to the foot of the breastworks, dying Scotclimen 
in the Highland regiment caUing to their comrades 
"not to lose a thought upon them but to mind the 
honor of their country. " Their major, Campell, of 
Inverawe, who, according to tradition, had been 
warned of his death at an unknown place named 
Ticonderoga by the ghost of a murdered cousin whose 
slayer he unwittingly sheltered, was wounded in the 
arm and died instead at Fort Edward, rather, it seems 
to me, of the unskilful surgery of the day than of the 
injury. Twenty-five Highland officers were killed or 
wounded in this fierce assault, one of their captains 
and a few men even mounting the breastworks and 
gaining the inside, where they were bayoneted. All 
was in vain. One more effort was made at six o'clock 
and then the English fell back, the rangers and some 
other Americans keeping up a distant fire to cover 
the retreat and the removal of the wounded. The 
English lost about nineteen hundred, some six hun- 
dred of whom were killed outright. The French 
losses were three hundred and seventy-seven. Never 
had human life and courage been more shamefully 
thrown away. 

The English had still abundant forces and all the 
cannon for a siege, but they were disheartened by 
their bitter and wasteful defeat and they were with- 
out a leader. To the astonishment of the French 
they were soon in full retreat up Lake George, bear- 
ing with them their sorrowful burden of wounded 
and their wooden-headed general, and leaving behind 
them baggage, provisions, everything, even to a num- 
ber of shoes stuck in the mud of a marsh through 



81 
wliicli the army hastened. The men were greatly 
disgusted with Abercromby, and he was afterwards 
known to his own soldiers as "Mrs. ]NJabby Cromby." 

PUTNAM'S ADVENTURE. 

After the Battle of Ticonderoga Abercromby lay at 
the head of Lake George. He busied his men in 
rebuilding Fort William Henry and leveling the siege 
works of Montcalm, on the site of the present village 
of Caldwell, while detachments of the army w^re 
sent to other i3oints, where the war was carried on 
with more vigor. Montcalm, wiio was meanwhile 
reinforced, lay at Ticonderoga, strengthening and 
improving the hasty works which had helped hi:n 
to withstand the determined assault of Abercromby' s 
army. He also sent large parties of men down South 
Bay to cut off the English supplies as they were 
hauled up from Fort Edward. One of these parties 
succeeded in destroying a large wagon train and kill- 
ing one hundred and sixteen men, at Halfway Brook, 
and Abercromby immediately despatched Rogers 
with seven hundred men down Lake George and 
across the mountains on the east shore to w^aylay the 
Frenchmen who had destroyed the wagons. Eogers 
arrived at South Bay too late to intercept the enemy. 
He was on his return to Lake George when he was 
met by messengers from Abercromby with orders to 
turn back and go in search of a party which had been 
reported as hovering about Fort Edward. Eogers 
made his way back to the crumbling ruins of Fort 
Anne for this purpose, and here he encamped for the 
night. Though he had forbidden tires, for fear of 



82 
discovery, he and an English officer who was of the 
party so far forgot caution as to fire at a mark the 
following morning before breaking camp, that they 
might decide a wager. 

It happened that the five hundred Indians and 
French, under the leadership of a famous French 
partisan, named Marin, of whom Eogers was in 
search, were within earshot of this firing and imme- 
diately laid a semicircular ambush across the path 
leading to Fort Edward^ where it ran through a dense 
thicket which had grown up in the former clearing 
around Fort Anne. After the wager had been settled 
Rogers' party took up their march in single file along 
the narrow path of the overgrown clearing, Major 
Israel Putnam taking the lead. Just at the approach 
to the larger woods the Indians fired, and a large 
Caughnawaga sprang upon Putnam^ whose gun failed 
him when he snapped it at the fellow's breast. He 
was captured and the Indian bound him to a tree. 
The rangers pushed their way up to the point of 
attack, greatly impeded by the young saplings of the 
clearing. The fight was an obstinate one Once the 
rangers fell back and the Indians and French pressed 
upon them. Again, the French retreated and made 
a stand farther on. These movements left the unfor- 
tunate Putnam tied to a tree between two fires. The 
bullets flew around him, often lodging in the tree to 
which he was bound, and several cut the sleeves and 
skirts of his coat. At last the French and Indians 
gradually fell away, but not until the Caughnawaga 
had unbound Putnam and taken him along. Rogers 
remained on the battlefield and buried the dead. He 



then made litters of the branches of trees and carried 
the wounded toward Fort Edward, until he was met 
by a detachment with wagons. 

Putnam, left meanwhile to the mercy of a brutal 
and defeated foe, after having been robbed of coat, 
vest, shoes and stockings by the savages and hit with 
the muzzle of a gun by a petty French officer, was 
driven through the woods by his captors, his bare 
feet bleeding, his back laden with the packs of their 
wounded and his hands tied together so tightly that 
they swelled. The torture of his wrists was so great 
that he begged the Indians to kill him, and a French 
officer who heard the request untied his hands and 
removed some of the burdens from his back, while 
his captor furnished him a pair of moccasins. Before 
they had completed their march, however, a savage 
wantonly wounded him on the cheek with a toma- 
hawk. When night had come the Indians bound 
Putnam to a stake, and gathering dry wood piled it 
about him. They set tire to the wood, but a summer 
shower put out the flames. The shower soon passed 
and the wood was lighted again. The Indians danced 
and yelled around their victim as the flames rose and 
he began to writhe with the torture of the fire. It 
was at this moment that the French leader, Marin, 
rushed through the fiendish crowd, and scattering 
the burning brushwood, cut Putnam loose from the 
stake, storming the while at the Indians for their 
cruelty. He then turned Putnam over to his savage 
master, who it seems was not unwilling to preserve 
his prisoner. When he found that Putnam was unable 
to eat hard bread on account of his wounded cheek 



84 
he moistened some for him. The captive was secured 
for the night in a common Indian fashion, by the 
tying of his legs and arms, as he lay on the ground, 
to young saplings, and laying slender poles across his 
body, on the ends of which some Indians slept that 
they might be awakened by his least movement. As 
he lay thus he smiled to think of his ridiculous 
plight. The next day he was led to Ticonderoga, the 
Indians showing on the way by menacing gestures 
how great was their disappointment at having missed 
their night's entertainment. From Ticonderoga he 
was removed to Canada, where he was kindly treated 
and presently exchanged. 

LAST SCENES OF THE FRENCH WAR ABOUT 
LAKE GEORGE. 

In spite of Montcalm's victory at Ticonderoga it 
was but a few days later that he began to foresee the 
necessity of abandoning this important post. Canada 
was by this time in great distress; her people were 
suffering for food, she was governed by a ring of 
speculators who were amassing fortunes out of her, 
and France was no longer able to come to her aid, 
one of her ministers saying that when the house was 
on fire it was impossible to think of the stable. Though 
Pitt's schemes had failed at Ticonderoga, they suc- 
ceeded on Lake Ontario, where the taking of Fort 
Frontenac cut off Canada's connection with her in- 
land posts. The capture of Louisburg meanwhile 
had gained the control of the mouth of the St. Law- 
rence, and the fall of Fort DuQuesne lost France the 
Ohio valley. The hand of the great English minister 



85 
was felt everywhere except at Lake George, where 
Lord Howe was dead and "Mrs. Nabby Cromby" 
ruled supreme. 

The final great struggle came in 1759, when General 
Wolfe advanced against Quebec. To co-operate with 
him from the rear eleven thousand men gathered at 
Lake George under Gen(iral Amherst, who was to 
make a descent into Canada by way of Lake George, 
Lake Champlain and the St. Lawrence. General 
Amherst was a new style of commander to these 
regions — sl famous fort builder. Wherever he went 
forts were soon broadcast — no frontier log walls, but 
fine, expensive stone affairs. Ignoring the one which 
Abercromby had begun the year before on the site of 
Fort William Henry, Amherst laid out an extensive 
work, named Fort George, on the spot where the 
former entrenched camp had stood. Only one bas- 
tion of this massive affair w^as ever finished. Am- 
herst's fort building energies were not alone devoted 
to this work, but posts were erected at intervals on 
the road between Lake George and Fort Edward, 
particularly at Halfway Brook, w hile the woods were 
cut for a wide distance along this track that wagon 
trains might no longer be in danger of Indian sur- 
prises. The army at Lake George was in 1759 com- 
posed half of English regular troops and half of 
Americans. The men were drilled in firing by 
platoons and practised in firing at marks and in forest 
warfare; they cut marsh hay for hospital beds, 
scouted, made spruce beer to ward off the scurvy, 
amused themselves with fishing and swimming and 



86 
were marched to the lake "every fair day" to wash 
their faces and hands. 

It was the twenty-first of July when Amherst's 
men gathered together in boats on the beach at the 
head of Lake George and embarked for Ticonderoga. 
Once more a noble army covered the waters of the 
lake and moved through its length, to the sound of 
martial music. At night at the lower end of the lake 
this fleet of boats was struck by a summer gale but 
weathered it safely and landed next morning, after 
driving back the French at the landing place. The 
French at Ticonderoga were commanded now by an 
officer named Burlamaque. He had almost as many 
men as had Montcalm the year before, when Aber- 
cromby was routed, but he had orders to abandon 
the forts on Lake Champlain when the English 
should apiDear and retire to an island in the Richelieu 
river, where he could the more easily defend Mon- 
treal, for it was seen that the branches must be 
abandoned since the heart of the colony was at stake. 
For fear that the English might suspect his plans and 
cut off his retreat Burlamaque busily strengthened 
the works of Ticonderoga as though he meant to 
make a determined defense. The barricade which 
Abercromby's men had so vainly stormed the year 
before was now abandoned, though it was more 
strongly built of earth and logs, and the English en- 
camped under its very edge for shelter from the can- 
non of the fort. The first night after the arrival of 
the latter Burlamaque secretly retired from Ticon- 
deroga, leaving an officer named Hebecourt with 



87 
four hundred men to defend the works a while longer 
and detain the English. 

General Amherst began a regular siege in a manner 
which would probably have reduced this post the 
year before. For four days the garrison kept up a 
steady cannonade upon the besieging army until 
Amherst's batteries were finally erected and ready to 
open fire the next day. It was then that at ten 
o'clock at night three deserters came running into 
the English camp with news that Hebecourt and the 
garrison were making off in boats, having left a slow 
match burning in the powder magazines of the fort. 
Loth to see a fort destroyed, Amherst offered a hun- 
dred guineas to the one of these men who would lead 
the way to the match, that it might be cut, but this 
was beyond the courage of a deserter, and an hour 
later there was a tremendous explosion. One bastion 
only of the fort was blown up. The barracks, how- 
ever, were burned, and while there still remained 
danger of more explosions, a sergeant risked his life 
to haul down the French flag still flying on the ram- 
parts of Ticonderoga. 

Shortly afterward the French abandoned and des- 
troyed Crown Point, on the approach of Amherst, 
and retired to Isle-aux-Noix, in the Richelieu River, 
where they fortified themselves "to the teeth." As 
the French had several vessels on Lake Champlain 
Amherst was obliged to spend the summer and fall 
waiting for the building of a small fleet, of boards 
made at a primitive sawmill at Ticonderoga, w^hich 
often broke down under the strain. In this way the 
warm season was wasted and Wolfe took Quebec 



88 
without Amherst's aid, though the latter general had 
the satisfaction of building a fine new fort at Crown 
Point. 

The following year, 1760, Brigadier General Havi- 
land descended Lake George on his way to aid in the 
final conquest of the remnant of Canada which still 
held out. He reached Montreal by way of Lake 
Champlain about the same time that armies from the 
upper and lower St. Lawrence did, and combined 
with them to bring about the fall of this town, with 
which the conquest of Canada was complete, and 
Lake George slumbered once more in solitude, until 
the breaking out of the war of the Revolution. 

ETHAN ALLEN AT TICONDEROGA. 

For fifteen years Ticonderoga's guns slept, its gar- 
rison of forty-eight men amusing themselves as best 
they might and its parade a play ground for soldiers' 
children and the sons of one or two frontier farmers 
who had invaded this country. With the fall of Can- 
ada, indeed, this great water route had lost its strat- 
egic value, but with the first breaking out of the 
Revolutionary war its possession became once more 
of vast importance. There were men in New Eng- 
land who immediately saw this and the necessity for 
quick action to forestall the English government; 
and thus it came about that one night in the May of 
1775 Ethan Allen with two hundred and thirty Green 
Mountain boys arrived opposite Ticonderoga. Boats 
were scarce but Allen secured enough to set over 
himself and eighty-three men, together with a 
farmer's boy who knew the way to the wicket gate of 



89 
the fort, which stood open. As morning was fast 
approaching and all depended on a surprise Allen did 
not wait for the return of the boats with the remain- 
der, of the men, but after haranguing those he had 
and appealing to their pride in the reputation of the 
Green Mountain boys for dash, he marched them to 
the wicker gate, where the sentinel snapped his gun 
at him and then ran within the fort to hide under a 
bomb proof. The Green Mountain boys w^ere not 
slow in following him and were soon forming on the 
parade within the fort, facing the barracks on either 
side and giving three huzzas to rouse the sleeping 
men. Allen slashed at one of the sentries who made 
a pass at one of his officers and then forced him to 
lead the way to the commandant's sleeping room, 
where he thundered at the door of Captain Delaplace, 
for this was his name, threatening to sacrifice the 
whole garrison if he did not immediately appear. The 
Captain hastened to comply, his breeches in his 
hands. 

"Deliver me this fort, instantly," said Allen. 

"By what authority do you demand it?" asked 
Delaplace. 

* 'In the name of the great Jehovah and the Conti- 
nental Congress!" replied Ethan Allen, who is said 
to have had about as much respect for the one author- 
ity as the British commandant had for the other. 

Allen enforced his commands by holding a drawn 
sword over the Captain's head, and having by this 
time beaten down the doors of the other barracks the 
fort was soon in the hands of the Green Mountain 
boys, w^ho, when their comrades had arrived from 



90 
across the water, '^'tossed around the flowing bowl,'^ 
to signalize their conquest. The spoils were one hun- 
dred and twenty cannon, some swivels and mortars^ 
tons of musket ballSy flints, shells, small arms,, pow- 
der, flour, pork, beans, peas and materials for boat 
building. By the orders of Congress the captured 
cannon and stores were removed to the head of Lake 
George for safe keeping, as Congress declared, until 
"the restoration of harmony," which in that early 
stage of the war was much talked about between 
England and her colonies As a matter of fact many 
of these cannon afterwards figured in the siege of 
Boston, for they were removed from Lake George 
the next winter on fifty sledges, drawn by eighty yoke 
of oxen, and reached Boston in time to make it possi- 
ble for Washington to drive the English army out of 
that city, 

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ON LAKE GEORGE. 
In the outset of the Revolutionary War the Ameri- 
cans thought to carry everything by dash, and the 
fall of Ticonderoga was followed by a hasty invasion 
of Canada, which in the spring of 1776 bade fair to 
fail because of the smallpox, poverty and the ill-will 
of the Canadians, tired of the exactions of invaders. 
Congress sent commissioners to Canada to try to un- 
ravel their army's entangled affairs. They were 
Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Chase and Charles Car- 
roll, of CarroUton. They ascended the Hudson 
in a sloop and were four days making the journey. 
At Albany they were entertained by General Schuy- 
ler, his wife and two lively, black-eyed daughters, 
Betsey and Peggy, all of whom accompanied the gen- 



91 

tlemen in a springless wagon to their country home 
at Saratoga. Here they waited a week for the ice in 
Lake George to show signs of breaking up, Frankhn 
[buffering greatly from tlie fatigue of the journey. On 
the sixteenth of April the commissioners took their 
way to Lake George. Snow was still on the ground 
and when after two days of hard riding they reached 
the head of the lake they found the ice still floating 
about in the water in large cakes. General Schuyler 
had gone before them to prepare a boat, and he had 
a bateau, thirty-six feet long, eight wide and one 
foot deep, fitted up with a sail and awning made of 
blankets. This f»rimitive craft set sail on Lake George 
at one o'clock on April the nineteenth, 1776. She 
made four miles and then the pa.-sengers went ashore 
and made tea. It took thirty-six hours to descend 
the lake in the boat of the blanket sail, battered 
about as she was by cakes of floating ice, Carroll 
indulging by the way in regrets that it was too early 
in the season to catch the famous fish of these waters. 
The bateau was placed on wheels and drawn across 
the neck of land between Lake George and Lake 
Champlain by six yoke of oxen. The commissioners 
reached Canada in the course of time and found the 
case of the army hopeless in case of the approach of 
an English army. Franklin, suffering from the hard- 
ships of the journey and the gout, returned through 
Lake George in the boat of the blanket sail, junketing 
by the way on land at various points, and journeyed 
down the Hudson, by wagon, his bones well-nigh 
broken on the stony and gullied road he traversed, 
such being the perils of American travel in 1776. 



02 
BURGOYNE \N CONTROL OF LAKE GEORGE. 

Once more a great army de cended through the 
Champlain valley, but this lime it was an English 
instead of a French — Englishmen ranged against 
those Americans by whose side they had fought 
seventeen years before, and bent upon cutting the 
rebellious colonies in two by way of the Hudson Val- 
ley. In the summer of 1777 General Burgoyne with 
an army of ten thousand men sailed up Lake Cham- 
plain and captured Ticonderoga without a blow by 
erecting a battery on a mountain overlooking its 
works. The Americans had been to much pains to 
strengthen this fort and great was their disappoint- 
ment at its loss. The fall of Ticonderoga induced 
them to abandon Fort George, for if the former work 
could be overlooked by cannon the latter could much 
more easily be taken in the same way. The useless- 
ness of these fortifications of the French struggle^ in 
the War of Independence, shows how great had been 
the improvement in the science of war in the few 
years that had intervened. General Schuyler was 
unjustly blamed for the abandonment of these two 
posts and was obliged to defend himself to General 
AVashingion, in the Fort George matter, by explain- 
ing that this post was but a bastion of an unfinished 
fort, in which was but one barrack, capable of hold- 
ing not more thaii thirty or forty men. There was 
no cistern and no picket to keep the enemy from 
overrunning the wall. It was commanded by the old 
Fort William Henry site, ''within point blank shot," 
and live hundred men might have been, he said, be- 



tween "this extremely defensible fortress" and the 
lake without being discovered by its garrison. 

After the chase of the Ticonderoga garrison the 
English army assembled at okeenesborough, as 
Whitehall was then called, at the head of Lake 
Champlain, and Burgoyne chose to march from this 
place to Fort Edward instead of returning to Ticon- 
deroga to take the easier route through Lake George 
and by way of the old military road of the French 
war. The Skeenesborough route, which involved 
much the inost land travel, was made immensely 
more difficult by General Schuyler, who had caused 
ditches to be dug, bridges to be broken and trees to 
be felled across what road then existed. Besides re- 
moving these obstacles, Burgoyne was obliged to 
build more than forty bridges across streams and 
marshes, one of which was more than two miles long. 
This expensive road building detained the army so 
long as to give the Americans time to recover from 
their first disheartenment and gather their forces for 
a resistance. The English general was afterward 
blamed for choosing the Fort Anne route and foolishly 
made the feeble excuse^ that Fort George would have 
detained him too long. It has been said that Major 
Skeene, the Tory founder of Whitehall, persuaded 
his friend, Burgoyne, to take this route that a good 
road might be built between his town and Fort Ed- 
ward. However that may be, Lake George afterwards 
became the route for the forwarding of stores, and 
portions of Burgoyne' s army went south this way. 
The English early occupied the abandoned Fort 
George, but they thought it so indefensible that a 



94 
garrison was also placed on Diamond Island, to afford 
protection to the numbers of boats which were now 
daily plying up and down the waters of Lake George. 
Burgoyne did not imitate the spartan example of 
Lord Howe, for his army was cumbered by the trans- 
portation of various luxuries for the use of the oflSc- 
ers, and every night, even up to the very eve of final 
misfortune, he dined heavily in his tent, leaving 
mounds of wine bottles at his camping places. All 
seemed more like a pleasure excursion than an in- 
vasion, and while the English were yet making 
triumphant though slow progress southward two 
ladies made their way through Lake George to join 
their husbands, who were officers in the English 
army. They were the first women to see this lake, 
except a few wives of common soldiers and camp 
followers. Lady Harriet Ackland, "a delicate little 
piece of quality," went through here in search of her 
husband, who had been wounded near Ticonderoga. 
Her story is a romantic one. Major Ackland was 
again wounded, and captured as well, in the Battle of 
Saratoga. Lady Ackland made the perilous journey 
to the American camp one rainy night, under the 
protection of an English chaplain, that she might 
nurse her husband. The Major recovered but after- 
ward fell in a duel in England. Lady Ackland lost 
her mind for some time after his death, though he 
was a rude, drinking man, but she finally recovered 
and married the chaplain who had had the devotion 
to accompany her on that perilous expedition in the 
rain to the American army, after the Battle of Sara- 
toga. 

Another lady to make the journey up Lake George, 



during this siiuuiier, was the Baroness de Riedesel, 
wife of the German general of that name in Bur- 
goyne's arm\\ She had three little children with 
her, one a young baby, and two maids. She had come 
all the way from Germany alone, in s^:;ite of the oppo- 
sition of her family, that she might be with her hus- 
band and be assured from day to day of his safety. 
After a tedious journey she had reached the army in 
Canada but a few days before its departure and had 
begged to be allow^ed to follow^ him, promising to 
bear everything and make no complaints. He refused 
to take her, but some time later when Lady Ackland 
joined the army he sent an officer after her and she 
and her family made the journey through Lake 
Champlain and Lake George and reached the English 
camp at Fort Edward, shortly before communication 
was cut off betW'Cen the army and Lake George. She 
was perfectly happy to dine with her husband in a 
barn and lodg? in an}- settler's house that might be 
found. She traveled in a calash which had been 
brought from Canada for this purpose. When mis- 
fortune befcl the British army she retreated to a cel- 
lar with Ler children, where she was crov/ded in 
with the wounded and dying, and finally v.hen the 
capitulation took place drove into the American camp, 
trembling at the ordeal, but only to be greeted with 
tears by the kind General Schuyler, who took her 
children in his arms and kissed them. He entertain- 
ed them all in his own home in Albany. This noble 
German lady was long a prisoner in America, where 
two more of her children were born, one of w^hich 
she named America and the other Canada. Burgoyne 



96 
"did not wish to build posts along the Hudson to pro- 
tect his communications with Lake George, choosing 
rather to wait at Fort Edward until enough supplies 
had been brought through this lake to last the army 
for a month and then abandon his comnmnications 
and march on for Albany. 

THE BATTLE OF DIAMOND ISLAND. 
While Burgoyne w^as on his march to Albany an 
adventurous American officer, Colonel Brown, sur- 
prised Ticonderoga on the tenth of September. He 
caj)tured two hundred and ninety-three men of the 
English regiment at the landing place at the lower 
end of the lake, besides several cannon, a sloop and 
two hundred bateaux, at the same time releasing one 
hundred American prisoners whom he found in cap- 
tivity there. He summoned the fort to surrender 
but had no means of forcing it to do so, so he fitted 
out instead a fleet of twenty sail, of the captured 
boats, three only of which w^ere armed, the largest 
vessel carrying only three cannon. These boats he 
manned with about four hundred and twenty men, 
among whom were the recaptured Americans, and 
sailed against Diamond Island. It must at best have 
been a primitive-looking fleet, with its one sloop and 
the awkward flat-bottomed bateaux, fitted perhaps 
with the blanket sails which prevailed on Lake 
George in early days. Brown's plan was to make the 
distance in one night and so surprise the garrison; 
but a heavy storm came on and forced him to anchor 
at Sabbathday Point at midnight of the twenty-second 
of September. Here he captured a small boat in 
w^hich was a man named Ferry, a sutler, recently de- 



97 
f-erted from the American army, who, however, es- 
caped later in the niglit and warned Captain Aubrey, 
commanding at Diamond Island, of his danger. The 
next day the motley fleet of Brown ascended the lake 
as far as Fourteen Mile Island and anchored again 
on account of high winds. The following morning, 
the twenty-fourth of September, Brown advanced to 
the attack of Diamond Island. The three armed boats 
attacked the north end of the island and the others 
parted to the right and left to try if at any point a 
landing might be made. The English fired first and 
Brown returned their fire "in good earnest." The 
enemy were well entrenched and had many well- 
mounted cannon. Brown made a bold attack, giving 
them as hot a fire as he could. The battle lasted for 
an hour and a half and until Brown was forced to 
abandon one of his boats and tow off his sloop, which 
was hulled. The English sent gunboats in pursuit of 
him, but he made good his retreat into Dunham's 
Bay, where he burned his boats and escaped through 
the woods, leaving his wounded in charge of the 
inhabitants of the neighboring country whom he had 
rescued from their imprisonment at Ticonderoga. 

This gallant little adventure was so soon followed 
by the surrender of Burgoyne's whole army at Sara- 
toga that it has been well-nigh forgotten in history. 
With the fall of Burgoyne, which discouraged the 
English from venturing far from the sea coast and a 
supporting fleet, and secured the French Alliance for 
the United States, all war on Lake George ended. 
Fort George and Fort Ticonderoga fell into ruins, 
while Diamond Island, dug over for its crystals, was 



98 
forgotten as a fortification, and people wondered 
when, not many years since, a brass cannon was 
found imbedded there. 

EARLY VISITORS AT LAKE GEORGE. 

AVashington was the father of Lake George traveL 
In the summer of 1783, while he was waiting for tlie 
evacuation of New York, before the final disbanding 
of his army, he came north, made the journey 
through Lake George, and after visiting Ticonderoga 
and Crown Point reasc.nded the lake on his return. 
The only conveyance of those days on the lake was 
the flat-bottomed bateau, with blanket sail, and no 
doubt Washington landed at various points and 
islands on the lake to cook and eat his meals. 
Soon after the Revolution the shores of Lake George 
were invaded by settlers, who cleared a few farms on 
its shores and spent much time in the deer hunt, one 
man being known to kill as many as thirty deer a 
year in its waters. The first hotel keeper appeared 
in the person of a man named Verner, who opened a 
tavern at the head of Lake George, and in 1801 the 
first pleasure party set forth on these waters, in a 
bateau with an awning of painted canvass, propelled 
by oars and Fails, built by General Schuyler at Schen- 
ectady, in which he and his family descended Lake 
George, Lake Champlain, the Richelieu and the St. 
Lawrence as far as Quebec, and on their return left 
their leisurely craft at the head of Lake George for 
the use of future travelers. It was used the next year 
by Timothy Dwight, the President of Yale College, 
who traveled through Lake George, admiring at the 



99 
close of day the shadows of the western mountains 
"floatir.g slowly over the bosom of the lake and then 
softly ascending the mountains on the east," giving 
the impression of one range of mountains climbing 
another. This traveler trembled for the mild-eyed 
deer which he saw chased through the waters and 
predicted in the stilted English of his day that here 
"the villas of opulence and refinement" would one 
day add "the elegancies of art to the beauty and 
majesty of nature." 

The site of Fort William Henry and a tract of ground 
around it known as the Garrison Ground were granted 
by the state to Columbia and Union colleges and sold 
by these institutions early in the century to William 
Caldwell, who was buying up large bodies of land on 
Lake George, to form a sort of American lordship, or 
manor. Caldwell w^as an Irishman and had come to 
America a poor man. He laid the foundation of his 
fortune in a store in Albany, in which his wife in 
early days is said to have tended the counter. He 
came in time to own a group of mills in which all 
sorts of articles, from hair powder to chocolate, were 
prepared. He founded the Village of Caldwell, and 
under the stimulus of his money and activity twenty 
smart houses soon stood here beside the courthouse 
and church which he had built and the Mansion 
House in which he lived. Caldwell built a tea house 
on Tea Island, and here he and his visitors used often 
to gather to drink tea. When President Dwight re- 
turned to Lake George in 1811 he was greatly sur- 
prised to find that "a beautiful village" had sprung 



100 
lip at its head and was fain to think that the ''villas 
of opulence and hixury" were already at hand. 

And now visitors began to appear in ever-increas- 
ing numbers on these long-hidden waters. In 1825 
the Duke of S'axe-Weimar found the steamboat Moun- 
taineer plying on the lake and an Indian family on 
Diamond Island selling the crystals in which it 
abounded. Two years later Basil Hall found Lake 
George so lovely that even Americans could not exag- 
gerate in praising it. Another traveler pronounced 
the Lake House of that day to be "a great and charm- 
ingly situated hotel," while still another, a home- 
sick Scotchman, indulged in sentiment over brick 
found in the ruins of Fort George, which he was cer- 
tain were of British make since they were blue at 
heart, not unlike himself. Among these early visit- 
ors to Lake George a very old lady remembers to 
have seen Aaron Burr walking through the streets of 
Caldwell to the postoffice in the old stone store, still 
in good preservation. 

And now at last Lake George was no longer to be 
the haunt of bloodthirsty braves; no more was it the 
arena of a fierce strife between two great nations en- 
gaged in a death struggle for the control of a conti- 
nent. Peaceful pleasure parties only sought its waters 
and summer homes grew up on its shores. But those 
who seek it for pleasure, health and rear may well 
give a thought to the honest fellows who left its earth 
sown with their bones, who dyed its waters witli 
their blood and Vv^ho enriched its natural beauties 
with the memories of their brave deeds. 



101 

POINTS OF HISTORIC INTEREST ON AND 

ABOUT LAKE GEORGE. 

The Site of the Battle of Lake George, 1755, lies on 
some partially improved property north of the Fort 
George Eoad, and across the raih-oad from about the 
middle of the beach, at the head of Lake George. 
Entrenchments may still be traced in the woods on 
this tract of land, and the Military Spring under the 
edge of a rise of ground here is memorable as having 
been used by the English army when encamped 
there. In running a new road north of this site many 
bones were found, and baking ovens built of stone 
and brick were unearthed, which have since been 
well-nigh destroyed at the hands of vandal relic hun- 
ters. A bill has been presented to the state legisla- 
ture by the Trustees of Scenic and Historic Objects 
and Places, in co-operation with the Caldwell Village 
Improvement xissociation, for the preservation of 
this battle site as a state park, and the Society of 
Colonial Wars pro^Doses to erect a monument on this 
memorable ground. 

Fort William Henry, located in the easternmost por- 
tion of the grounds of the hotel of the same name. 
The earthworks remain intact and the form of the 
fortifications may distinctly be traced. They are 
covered with a noble growth of pines which have 
sprung up since the close of the last French war, in 
1760. 

Fort George, situated on a rocky hill overlooking 
the railroad where it debouches on the beach at Lake 
George, is the site of the ejitrenched camp occupied 
by the main body of the garrison of Fort William 



102 
Henry, during the siege, and of the massacre of Lake 
George. Today the remains of Fort Greorge, built by 
Amherst and afterwards occupied in the War of the 
Revolution by a detachment of Burgoyne's arjny,may 
ba found on the spot. 

An Old Military Dock, from which both Abercromby's 
and Amherst's armies en:ibarked on their expeditions 
against Ticonderoga, still exists under water on the 
beach at the liead of Lake George. Near the same 
spot the remains of a sunken sloop m.ay also be seen 
— a relic, no doubt, of one of the fleets of the various 
armies which traversed Lake George. 

Fort Cage, lying between Luzerne and the Plank 
Road, was an outpost of the encampment of Aber^ 
cromby's army. 

Montcalm's Camp was located on the grounds of the 
old Caldwell Mansion House, now the property of 
Mr. James Hayden, and on those across the road, 
known as the Golf Ground. 

The Temporary Camp occupied by the garrison of 
Fort William Henry was located on the high ground 
back of the Catholic Church. 

The Fort William Henry Farm occupied the site of the 
present hotel, its grounds and those of the houses 
across the Plank Road. In digging the cellar of Dr. 
Cromwell's cottage,now owned by Mr. P^lwyn Seelye, 
the remains of sixteen bodies were unearthed, and 
the bones were reinterred under the bay window of 
the cottage. 

Artillery Cove is the spot where INIontcalm landed 
his cannon for the siege of Fort William Henry, at 
night, under cover of the darkness. 

The Landing of Montcalm's Army took place in the 



103 
small bay north of the two points belonging to Mr. 
Cramer. From this point Montcahn's anny marched 
in three columns to besiege Foit William Henry. 

Bolton was Montcalm's rendezvous for his forces on 
•coming from the north to invest Fort AViUiam Henry, 
a triangle of lire being built on the mountain side 
liere b}^ the land forces, as a signal to those on the 
watei". At this spot the whole army ate and rested. 

Diamond Island. Fortified by Burgoyne in the War 
'of the Revolution for the protection of the stores 
which he brought through Lake George for the sup- 
port of his army. Here a sharp battle was fought 
between Captain Aubrey, in command of the island, 
and Colonel Brown, in a fleet of boats captured from 
the English at the foot of the lake and manned by 
Americans. A brass cannon has been seen imbedded 
in the lake bottom north of this ishmd. 

Dunham's Bay, in pre-glacial times the outlet of one 
of the two streams which liowe:! through the Valley 
of Lake George and took their rise in the Narrows. 
Here Brown destroyed his boats after his defeat at 
Diamond Island and made his escape by land. The 
remains of old boats may be seen in the water here, 
which, it has been conjectured, were thos3 of the 
plucky Brown. 

Sabbathday Point, so called for the reason that tlie 
army of Abercroniby landed here Saturday night ar.d 
left during the small hours of Sunday morning to 
advance against Ticonderoga. During the last Frencii 
war and the Revolution several skirmishes were 
fought at this point. 

Rogers' Rock. Behind this mountain the famous 
scout, Rogei's, fought a gallant little battle with an 
overpowering force of Indians and French,arid accord- 
ing to tradition afterwards made the Indians believe 
by stratagem that he had slid down the rock and so 
escaped pursuit. From Roger.-^' Rock the advance 



104 

guard of the French army at Ticonderoga kept a look- 
out at the time Abercromby moved through Lake 
George to the attack of that post. 

The Falls of Ticonderoga. Here Lord Howe fell, on 
the west bank of the stream, near wlKjre Trout Brook 
enters it. 

Ticonderoga, occupied first by Dieskau in his advance 
against the English, was for some years the advance 
post of the French and the site of the battle of Ticon- 
deroga. It was finall}^ abandoned and partly destroy- 
ed by the French when Amherst laid siege to it. At 
the outset of the Revolutionary war it was captured 
by Ethan Allen and later fell into the hands of Gen. 
Burgoyne when he invaded New York State. Some 
interesting ruins still remain at this point and here a 
monument is likely soon to be erected by the Society 
of Colonial Wars. 







■?^. 




r. 



AsjtABl-E CHA5J!¥! 



106 
AUSABLE CHASM. 
One of the wonders of America is Ausable Chasni;, 
an illustration of which is given on the preceding 
page. This grand and beautiful gorge is cut in solid 
rock by the impetious course of the Ausable River, on 
its way from the Adirondacks to Lake Champlain, 
The length of the Chasm is nearly two miles; in some 
places it is fifty feet wide, in others it is compressen 
to only ten, and from ninety to two hundred feet 
deep, with sharp turnp^ lateral fissures, imn:iense 
amphitheatres and chambers. The scenery is grand 
beyond description. Situated amid noble surround- 
ings, the Adirondacks on the one hand, the Green 
^Mountains on the other and Lake Champlain in the 
near distance, with fine fishing, drives and walks at 
hand, it is a most attractiye summer resort. The 
Lake View Hou;^ e which stands near the Chasm has 
recently been bought by a syndicate of capitalists,, 
together with the great wonder itself, and the whole 
is conducted by Mr. W. H. Tracy,as general manager. 
The owners have made the whole of this wild gorge 
accessible by means of foot bridges, stairways, galler- 
ies and boats. The visitor is admitted to the chasm 
through a building known as the Lodge and descends 
into it by means of a stairway. He visits in turn 
Rainbow Falls, (70 feet,) Horshoe Falls, Pulpit Rock, 
Split Rock, the Devil's Oven, Hell Gate and the 
Devil's Punch Bowl. Jacob's Ladder soon afterward 
leads the visitor's mind in a more heavenly direction 
and is followed by Mystic Gorge, Cape Eternity, 
Smuggler's Pass <kc. These freaks of nature are fol- 
lowed by the wonderful Flume. No traveler on his- 
toric Lake George or Lake Champlain should fail to 
see this noble gorge. 





m 



GLENS FALLS, WARREN CO., N. Y., 



Enjoys the reputation of being the first in the United 
States to successfully treat all forms of diseased eyes, 
without the knife, or risk. The absorbtion treatment 
is humane and curative to a degree never before 
attained, as attested by hundreds who have regained 
their sight after being pronounced incurable. 




Send Two 2c stamps for "The Eye," a pamphlet which should be in 

every family. It gives causes of failing sight and diseased eyes, and 

how cured at our Sanitarium or by home treatment. 



Vast Panoramic Views of Lakes, 
Muuntains and Islands! 



W£ 



450 Acres of Park; Miles of Walks 
and Drives in Hotel Grounds! 



Hotel Champlain, 



Tlie Finest Summer Resort in the North, 
Three miles south of Plattsburg, on the 

Delaware & Hudson Railroad 

The Shortest, Quickest and Best Line, 

Montreal to New York. Tourists 

Through Lake Champlain spend 

the night at Hotel Champlain. 



ALL TRAINS AND BOATS STOP. 



HARTMAN & EVEREST, 

NO. 4 CRANDALL BLOCK, 
GLENS FALLS, NEW YORK 

DEALERS IN UP-TO-DATE 

Boots, Shoes & Rubbers 

Plant's Fine Ladies' Shoes, 
$2.50 and $3.00 in All Styles. 
To see them is to buy them 1 

NO: 4 CRANDALL BLOCK. 




Established in 1867, is the Oldest Dry Goods 
Concern in this Town I 

OUR SPfcCIALTY 

Consists in Ladies' Wear of Every Kind! 

Suits, Wraps, Capes, Jackets 

For Ladies, Misses and Children. 
THE LAEGEST DEALERS 

In Dress Goods, Silks, and Imported and Domestic Dry Goods, 
Fancy Goods, Laces. Gloves and Notions. ^.r^c'rc 

UP STAIRS We keep a Complete Stock of All Kinds CARPETS, 
MATTINGS, LINOLEUM and other floor coverings, Lace and Por- 
tier Curtains, Shades and Fixtures. 

You can find us at 140 GLEN STREET. 

A. WURTENBERG, - GLENS FALLS, N. Y. 



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SEND STAMP FOR MY ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE. 



JOHN S. STUART 



Dealer in 



kecy Goods, 

GLENS FALLS, - NEW YORK. 

HEADQUARTERS FOR 

Bric=a=Brac, Summer Dress Goods, Dra= 
peries, Stamped Linens & Embroideries. 

Visitors Cordially Invited to visit our ART ROOMS 

3 4' Warren Street, 3>Ac^ 

W. B, TEAR5E, 

r- 
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in 

FINE HARNESS AND HORSE GOODS, 

Awningfs, Canopies. Tents. Sails, Steamer Curtains & Cusheons. 




V A (XT8TER OF CHARISIING *!§► 

*^' ""Mimmer Homes? 



tS)Minnimer iniomest 

^'* i4f Joshua's Rock, on Lake George, *•§► 
# # 

^|j Where stand the stone library aiul cottage of .^ 

^ Dr. Edward Egglestoii, the novelist and histor- '^ 
^1* ian, the cottages of George Car y Eggleston, «l^ 
S\t editor of tlie New York Wo'ld^^ Harvey N. ^j^ 
^, Looinis, of Ciiicago, Colonel A. G. Brown, of ^ 
^'* Brooklvn, W. H. Townsend, of New York, *'^ 
<|l» Mrs. J. H Havens, of Brooklyn, Miss Ada M. ♦!§► 
^|i Gleason^ of New York, George W> Ferris, of ,|^ 

£ Glens Falls, and Elwyn Seelye, owner of 100 ^ 
*£'* acres of the snrronnding noble woods and*'^ 
<^|» ravines, with a mile of lake frontage. None «i^ 
^.^ but desirable neighbors are adujitled to these ^.^ 

f. grounds, wheie may be had as much seclusion ^ 
<fcl* and freedom from restraint as desired, varied *\^ 
4p|» with desirable associations with delightful «j3^ 
^. people. ,i 

c' A daily mail all the year round. Fresh meat, '^ 
<^l» milk, eggs, berries and vegetables brought to*l§K 
^l» the door. A daily express between Caldwell ^j^^ 

^ and Joshua's Rock. .^ 

4'» *'§► 

^j^ Lots for Sale on Reasonable Terms ^j^ 
^i» Cottages built at Moderate *i|» 
4i» Prices I ♦li^ 



<§!» Apply to ELWYN SEELYE, Joshua's Rock, ♦igl 
<||» Lake George, N. Y. i|§^ 



On Lake George, 

Beautifuliy Located. 

Lots, Plots and Cottage Sites 

For Sale, at Reasonable Prices, 
and on Easy Conditions! 

Al! Steamers land, Postoffice on Property. Rne Teftnis Court. 
Good Bicycle Path. Charming: Groves. 

Groceries, Meats, Vegetables, Milk, ice &c.. delivered on premises 

Cottages Built to Suit, 

Property reasonably restricted against nuisances- 

Apply to or address the Postmaster- 



Levi Case & Co., 

20 WARREN STREET, 

GLENS FALLS, N. Y., 

Fire, Copper and Sheet Metal Work. 
Agents for Fuller & Warren Co. 

STOVES AND RANGES! 

BRAMQN & IRVING, Managers. 



The VamCott, 

LEADING HOTEL, 

South St., Glens Falls, N. Y. 



D, Wo Hamilton, Proprietor. 



iWt. Hamilton is formerly of the Carpenter House, Lake George . 
and the VanCott is headquarters for Lake George people^ 

First=class Accommodations 



HOUSE HEATED BY STEAM 

FREE 'BUS TO AND FROM ALL TRAINS 

DISPLAY ROOM FOR COMMERCIAL MEN 



CAPITAL $100,000.00. SURPLUS $30,000.00, 



^"1^ Merchants' National Bank 

Corner ot Glen and RiJge Streets, 

GLENS FALLS, N. Y. 

W.H.ROBBINS D.L.ROBERTSON F.F.PRUYN 

President Vice Pres. Cashier 



-DIKECTORS-, 

Samuel Pruyn " S. B. Goodman C. M. Wilmarth 

Geo. H. Legg-ett Orville C. Smith Jno. H. Burniiam. 

Ezra Hartm.an Wm. Moore Frank Byrne 

A. J. Cheritree A. Wurtenherg- S. W. Russell 

Myron O. Brown Harmon R. Leavens W. H. Rowe 



A GENERAL BANKING BUSINESS TRANSACTED. 

Accounts of Residents on Lake George Especially Solicited. 

Foreign Exchange, Travelers' Letters of Credit and Tickets to and 
from Europe at lowest rates! 

Checks Collected on all points and prompt attention given to. 
Correspondence. 

New York Correspondent: The Chase National Bank. 

W^TCHAPMAN, 

Landscape,,, 

,„ArcIhItect, 

:;s:i dlen St.. - - - - GLENS FALLS, N. Y. 



-DEALEE IN-^ 

FRUIT AND ORNAMENTAL 



Trees, Shrubs and Vines! 

Trees and Shrubs of the most desirable character for public and 
private grounds, parks, avenues, cemeteries and lawns supplied, and 
estimates furnished. References of the best nature given and cor- 
respondence solicited. Electric cars pass residence and grounds. 



MUHLFELDER'S. 



jc: , ^ ^ 



The Popular Store for 

Millinery, Cloaks, Suits 

And Infants' Wear. 

CORRECT STYLES AND RIGHT PRICES! 

V.MS (^len St., - - - - GLENS FALLS, N. Y. 

CHAS. E. BULLARD, 

Fmineral Director 

And Embalimer, 

OFFICE 32 WARREN STREET, 

RESIDENCE 237 GLEN STREET. 

^ ., <^ 

Mantels ! Grates ! Tiling ! 

Fireplace Fixtures, Venetian Blinds etc. 
Warerooms 32 Warren St., GLENS FALLS, N. Y. 



JUNIUS E. BARBER. EMMETT L. BARBER 

BARBER BROTHERS, 

OPERA HOrSF, BLOCK, 

GLENS FALLS, - NEW YORK. 

JAMES H. BAIN, 



Attoreey=at- Law, 



GLENS FALLS, N. Y. 



Moore & Starbiick 

Market men, 

Xo. 12 Exchange Street, GLENS FALLS, N. Vr 
Branch at Caldwel!, Lake George. 

Prime Chicago Beef, 

Ferris Hams & Bacon, 
Fruit & Vegetables, 
Fresh & Salt Water Fish 
Received Daily! 

Also Live Lobsters 

Orders Promptly Delivered and Satisfaction 
Guaranteed. 



Headquarters 

Tin Ware Nickle Ware 

Aluminum Ware 

Copper Ware Agate Ware 

Oil Stoves, 



Ci't'.erv Guns, Revolvers, Ammuniti'jn, Boat Oars, Screen Doors, 
Window Screens, Poultry Netting, Step Ladders, Wheelbarrows, 
Famous West Shore Ranges, Kernan Furnaces, Tinwork & Plumbing 

Whipple & Robinson, 

184 Gleu St., GLENS FALLS. 




g^r^FISHIXG TACKLE. 

D. NORCROSS 



(;AR1)EX HOSE.-%iM 

G. W. SCOTT 



D. Norcross k Co. 



MANUKACTURHRS OF 



WAINSCOATING 



muLD%GT SASH, DOORS & BUNDS 

Scroll and and Sawing, Turn'ng and Machine 
Work Done by the Hour. 

—SlMX'IALLIllS- 
>t;iir Work, Veiieei-(Hl Do is. Haidwocl i-'ini-li. 



6 AND 8 SUMNER PLACE. 



GLENS FALLS, 



N. Y. 



DENTiSTRY. 



S.i. BOWMAN, D.D.S. 



Opem House Block, 



GLENS FALLS, = N. Y. 



All Branches of Dentistry Executed in my 
Office. Any of all Ancesthetics Admin- 
istered in Extraction. 



Rochester Clothing Co. 



ESTABLISHED 1884. 

NOW LOCATED AT 



28 WARREN ST., QLENS FALLS. 

OPPOSITE p. O. . 

Fine Clothing a Specialty! 

FOK MAN, YOUTH OK BOY. 

Also a Full and Complete Line of 
Samples Made to Measure, $\<,io$^y^ 

A hvays the Latest IStyles ill Hats, Caps t^ Furnishings. 



TRUNKS AND BAGS. 

IMITATED BY ALL. EQUALLED BY NONE. 



REUBEN N. PECK, 



DEALER IN 



IVrfinnery. Faney Aiticles. 

Lamps, Garden Seeds &c , 
NO. 8 WARREN ST. QLENS FALLS. 




EstabMshed 



Crittenden & Cowles, 

INTERIOR DECORATORS, 

Art WaM=PsiperI 

BOOKSELLERS, 

AND ART EMBROIDERY, 

NO. 122 GLEN ST.. GLENS FALLS, N. Y. 



Charles H. Carson, 

■^'"^^E INSURANCE 

Investment Securities. 

NO 1 R.DGE ST QLENS FALLS 




aiyOO Company 



SANDY HILL, N. Y., 

HEADQUARTERS FOR 

Lumber, Lath, Shingles, 

Sash, Doors, Blinds ! 

""'^.'n'd'sof building MATERIAL!! 



Goods Shipped Promptly to Caldwell 
or any Point on Lake George. 

We Make a Specialty of All Kinds of 
Cottage Trimmings. 



CLOTHER & MYERS, 

\TORS AND WJ ti T\ I 

DEALERS ,N y^ ^\\ Paper! 



DECORATORS AND 



Paint, Oil, Varnish and Paint Supplies. 

Cottage and Hotel Work a Specialty. 

Estimates Furnished on all kinds of Decorations. 
132 WARREN ST., GPP. P. O. 

GLEm FALLS, ■ NEW YORK. 

-A Failur©- 

TO VISIT OUR 

ELEGANT NEW ESTABLISHMENT 

Would be a Great Mistake. 

Wallace & Go's Chocolates and Bonbons 

Are Delicious. We Sell Them. 

Our PRESCRIPTION DEPARTMENT is complete 
in every detail and in charge of competent men. 

FERRIS &VIELE, Druggists, 

124 GLEN STREET, GLENS FALLS. 



LAKE GEORGE. SEASON 1896. 

Green Island, Bolton, on Lake George, 

Warren County, N. Y. 

REGULAR OPENING JUNE 23d. 

Parties coining to Sagamore from June 1st to 
23d taken at Reduced Rates. 

Lake George, with its crystal waters, island gems, 

rugged mountains and forests can be best seen 

in this immediate vicinity. 

Terms and Circulars Sent on Application. 

The New Hot;! will open June 2?d. The house has all modern 
conveniences, such as electric lights, elevator, private baths, ladies' 
private writing rooms and parlors, gentlemen's writing rooms and 
parlors, bowling all&v, billiard rooms, etc. 

The Sagamore can be reached by the New York Central & Hudson; 
River and West Shore railroads, the steamers of the People's Line 
from New York to Albany, or the Citizens' Line from New York to 
Troy, thence by the Delaware & Hudson to Lake George. Alighting 
at Caldwell the tourist steps aboard the "Horicon" or "Ticonderoga " 
and is brought to the steamboat deck in front of the hotel. 

Green Island is located between Northwest Bay and Bolton. The 
island comprises about seventy acres, is handsomely laid out in wind- 
ing forest walks and drives, rustic seats and beautiful summ :r houses. 
A board walk leads to the narihern terminus of the island 

Beautiful drives and picturesque mountain walks on main land. 

The best of protection against fire. A complete livery supplied 
with safe horses and tally-ho coaches. 

Telegraph and Postoffice in the Hotel. 

M. O. BROWN, = = = Lessee and Proprietor. 



NELSON LaSALLE, 



MANUFACTURER OF 



Fiini(e Carriages 5%!/ 

Business Wagons, Etc., 

36 GLEN STREET, 
Opposite Dix's Foundry. OL£i\/S FALLS, N. Y. 



SPECIAL ATTENTION to REPAIRING 

Best Place to Buy Millinery 

Is Mrs. Mason's Store, 
Glens Falls, N. Y. 

Headquarters for Hair Goods. Every- 
thing for Infants' Wear. Ladies' 
Wraps &c. . General Agency 
for Silver Cream. 

MRS. H. W. MASON. 125 GLEN STREET. 



ESTABLISHED 1860. ALWAYS UP TO DATE 



-^GEO. H. BASSINGER,,*^ 

Watchmaker and Jeweler, 

Rockwell House Block. GLENS FALLS, N. K 



A Store Full of Goods Suitable for Gifts in Gold, Sterling 
Silver and Diamond Jewelry! t have the best workmen 
for Fine Watches, Jewelry, Spectacles, Eye Glasses &c. 
Repairing with special dispatch. Attention to Details 
and the needs of our customers is ojr first thought. 



C. N. HITCHCOCK & CO., 



Wholesale 
& Retail 



Tobacconists 



hid Manufacturers of Fine Cigars. 

DEALERS IN 

Pipes and All Kinds of Smokers' Articles! 

Prices and Quality of all Goods Guaranteed to be Satisfactory. 
115 GLEN AND 4 RIDGE STREET, 

GLENS FALLS, N. Y., 



^lothing ! (Qiothing 



^., ^ 



AVliei) in need of First-C'lasg, Up-to-Date Clotliing 
and MEN'S FURNISHINGS, don't forget to 
visit the CLOTHING PALACE of 

Coolidg'e(^ Beotley 

New Store, New Goods and the Very Latest Styles, 
at tlie Most Popular Prices. 

No. 126 Glen Street, Glens Falls, N. Y. 

COOLIDGE & BENTLEY. 



J. E. Sawyer & Co. 

88 GLEN ST., GLENS FALLS, 

— Always Carry in Stock a Large Assortment of — 

Light, Surrey, 

Express, Coach, Farm 
and Heavy Team 

Harness Parts, Kiding Saddles and Bridles, Horse 
Sheets, Suits and Fly Nets, Lap Robes and Dusters. 

Full Line of Saddlery and Carriage Makers' Supplies. 

Bar Iron and Steel a Specialty. 

PRICES ALWAYS THE LOWEST. 

J. E. Sawyer & Co, 



Prospect Mountain ! 

2,000 FEET ABOVE LAKE GEORGE. 

GRANDEST VIEW IN AMERICA I 

Embracingf the Adirondacks, Green, White and Catskill Mountains. 
Berkshire Hills and 30 Miles of Lake George. Reached by the 

Otis Inclined Cable Ry. 



From the Village of Caldwell, making the Ascent in Ten Minutes 
Cars leave the foot of the mountain every 50 minutes from 9 a. m. t > 
7 p. m. Special trips at other hours on application to Superintend- 
ent. Stages will be in waiting at D. & H. Station and Steamboat 
Landing to carry passengers to foot of mountain. 

Lunch & Refreshments at Summit Casino 

Grand Pavillion for Picnic Parties, 

Bowling Alley, Electric Lights, 

Beautiful Walks. Woods and Sunsets. 



gi^Tickets may hj purchased at Casino for Dinners 
at tlie Lake Hou.^e, including return trip to top of 
mountain These ticket.^ will be sold at Summit onlv. 



SPECIAL ENTERTAINMENTS 

For Moonlight Evenings will be Advertised durim^ 
the Season. 

ROUND-TRIP TICKETS, - - 50 CENTS 



L. P. JUVET, 

GLENS FALLS, N. Y. 

Diamonds, Jewelry, Spoons! 
EYE SPECIALIST. 

EXAMINATIONS FREE. 

Qlees Falls Lime ! 

Anal3^sis by Prof. J. H. Appleton, of Brown Univ'ty; 

Water and Carbonic Acid — not an impurity, . . 1.20 

Iron and Allumina 1.70 

Magnesia 64 

Lime, 96.46 

100.00 
The following are the average breakings for twelve months of 
"IRON -CLAD PORTLAND" CEMENT, manufactured by the 
GLENS FALLS PORTLAND CEMENT CO., as shown by Wm. W. 
Maclay, C. E.: 

Tensile Strength in lbs. per sq. Inch. 
I Day 2 Days 7 Days 29 Days 6 Mos. i Yr. 
Neat Cement . . 390 550 650 800 996 1080 

X part cement o ^ ^ 

a parts sand ^5o 200 330 418 611 611 

Coolidge & Wait, " - -- i^r 

wrvrmiM^w *^ r t ma 0.9 GLEWS FALLS. N. Y. 

HF Pf nVn Up=to=the Times 
• 1^9 i i^\j 11/9 Jeweler. 



Silver Novelties for Favors. Cor. Warren & Ridge Sts. 

GLENS FALLS, N. Y. 



I he Lake House, 



Lake George. N, Y. 



ONE OF THE FINEST SUMMER RE^ 
SORTS IN THE ADIRONDACKS, 



Seven Fine Cottages of Different Sizes 

to Rent for the Summer Season, 

from June ist to October ist. 



Send tor circular giving a full description of liotel 
and cottages. 

W. W. BROWN, - - Lessee and Proprietor. 



WEST-SHORE 
=RAILROAD= 

^^^ Popular Through Car Line 

BETWEEN 

New York, Boston, Albany, Utica, Syracuse, 

Rochester, Buffalo, Niagara Falls, Toronto, 

Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago & St. Louis. 

The Only Line Running 

ThroMglhi , Drawiog , Room , Cars 

During the Summer Season 

Between 
Long Branch, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia. 

the Catskill Mountains, Saratoga & Lake George. 

Rates the Lowest. .-. Time the Fastest. 

C. E. LAMBERT, Gen'l Passenger Agent, 

5 VANDERBILT AVENUE, - - - NEW YORK 



Hundred Island House, 

Lake George, N. Y. 




FOR ILLUSTKAlEi) PAMPHLET APPLY TO 

HENRY E. NICHOLS, Manager. 



1. N. SCOTT & SON, 

DEALERS IN 

Crockery, /f^ o Butter. Eggs, 

'^'rrr Qroceraes xnf 

NO. 18 RIDGE ST., 

GLENS FALLS, - N. Y. 



HISTORY! 



^ , t^ 



We are milking iiis^tnry every day; eveiy month: 
every year! 

For the last thirty-nix yeary our business has been 
a iiistory making epocli in this section. 

A large number of hotels and cottages on the shores 
'xA Historic Lake (jreorge will bear whness ol oni' 
skill in furnishing. 

AVe liave now gathered together from the P'ast and 
the West the largest stock of Low and Medium-Priced 



[huri 



URNiTURE 



that was ever shown north of Troy, and at pi'ices 
lower tlian all competitois. Cottage Furniture a Specialty 

Chamber Suites From $15.00 Upward. 

§>oO worth or over delivered at Lake Geoi-ge. 

Chas, O. Howe, 

Nl'-.W STOKE, 2,s, 30, 32 and 34 WAKIiEX STREET, 

GLENS FALLS, N. Y. 

Please mention this advertisement. 




And Boarding 



LIVERY 



Qree!n(^ Himlbbell 



UKE GEORGE, N. Y. 

F!RST=CUSS SINGLE AND 
DOUBLE RIGS! 

Experienced and Careful Drivers. 

Office Second Door North of Carpenter House. 

Patronage Solicited and Satisfaction Guaranteed. 



AriMg-too Hotel, 



Central Houise, 

LAKE GEORGE, - - - - - N. Y. 

Busses to all Trains antl Boats. 

SPECIAL RATES TO FAMILIES 1 

WORDEN & DENTON. Proprietors. 

^^ROBERT IMRIEj^ 

ey-at- Law, 

LAKE QEORQE, N. Y. 

REAL ESTATE FOR SALE! 

ABSTRACTS OF TITLE. 





0. M. SMITH, 

BOAT BUILDER AND OAR MAKER. 

Row Soats, Sail Boats, Working Boats, Naptha and Steam 
Launches, Steam Yachts &c. 

Dealer in all kinds of Boat Machinery. Boats to let by the week, month 
or season. 

p. O. ADDRESS, LAKE GEORGE, N. Y. 

^Smmmer Cottage 

AT THE HEAD OF LAKE GEORGE, 

( 'ontaining twelve rooms. Cool and airy; completely 
turnished throughout ; surrounded by delightful 
grounds^; near the station and telegraph. 

For Rent on Moderate Terms. 

Apply to ELA\^N SEELYE, Joshua's Rock, 
Lake George, N. Y. 



J. D. & H. J. SELLECK, 

pine Grocer ie 



AND GENERAL MERCHANDISE. 

Flour, Feed, Hay, Grain and Straw! 



We make a specialty of Fresh Vegetables, Butter, Eg-g:s, Oranges. 
Lemons, Candies &c. 

LAKE GEORGE, N. Y. 



MRS. J. A. BLACK, 



Latest 
and 
Style 



0pp. Central House, Lake George. 

Choice Assortment of Fancy Goods and Notions, including the 
Honiton and other fashionable Laces. 



All the Approved Shapes in Stock 
and Trimming to Order. 

An Inspection Invited. 







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5 CD 

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The Old Favorite 

Carpenter House! 

Beautifully Located at the head of Lake George 
and Unequalled for Comfort and Convenience. 

Fresh vegetables every day from our own garden, 
and all the delicacies of the season. 

Three Minutes' Walk from D. & H. Depot, 

And Busses to all Trains. 

Transients $2 Per Day. Board by Week $7 to $10. 

Lake George P. O. J. H. CARPENTER, Rro. 

Eo R, Ziebach, 

Pharmacist 



Graduate in 
Pharmacy & 
Registered 



LAKE GEORGE. N. Y. 



Pure Drugs, Patent Medicines 

Fine Cofectionery, Domestic and Imported Cigars, 
Ice Cream Soda Water, WINES, LIQUORS &c. 

Orders by Mail Receive Prompt Attention. 
£. R. ZIEBACH, - - LAKE GEORGE POST OFF ICE. 



C. A. & E. J. WEST, 

DEALERS IN 

General Merchandise 




WILL DELIVER YOU ANYTHING AT ANY TIME TO ANY 
PART OF THE LAKE. 

fuail Your Orders to Them and They 
Will Send the Goods. 

FINE GROCERIES A SPECIALTY!! 

POSTOFFICE, LAKE GEORGE, N. Y. 

M. H. STANTON, 

Hardware! 

Tiimware, Stoves, 

PLUMBING, STEAM & GAS FITTING. 

ALSO 

Fishing Tackle and Bicycle Sundries!! 
LAKE GEORGE, N. Y. 



THE. 




attsklll 



H 



'9 



LAKE GEORGE, N. Y. 

k. p. 8C0VILLE, - - - Owner and Proprietoi 



ADVANTAGES OF THIS HOUSE. 



(•j'oiinds contain Six Acres 
Pure Spring Water 
Woods and Mountains 
Boats, Guides and Boatmen 
Croquet and Tennis Grounds 
Moderate Prices. 



P. O. and Telegraph at the House 
Livery connected with the House 
Billiards and Play Grounds 
A bountifully supplied table 
Good Stabling 
Unexcelled Views. 



Rates $8 to $12 Per Week. Two Dollars per Day 

For Particulars address A. P. SCOVILLE, Kattskill Bay, N. Y. 



C. J. & Q. W. BATES, 

—Manufacturers of — 

Steam Laueclhes 

And all kinds of Light Working Boats. 

ST. LAWRENCE SKIFFS A SPECIALTY. 

All kinds of row locks on hand. Also Oars. 

A new plant of machinery for getting out any kind of Wood Work 
for House Building. Also Contractors in House Building, and are 
ready to suit our old customers as usual and meet them at the 
"half-mile bush." 

New shop in rear of postoffice. 



LAKE QEORQE, N. Y. 



S '07 



Dry=Qoods! ^^'p^^^^ Garments! 



DISTANT ONLY 9 MILES 

..<FROM LAKE GEORGE IS THE BIG STORE... 

The Big Store with the Small Prices! 

And one of ther chief points of interest in the Southern 
Adifondacks. 



If Cooper was delighted with the beauty of the Adirondack scen- 
ery it goes without saying that Mrs. Cooper would have been equally 
charmed by the completeness of 



Bar Store' 



Appointments for women and the things that interest all modern Mrs. 

Coopers. A Great A;'Vantage, too; one needs no guide 

to discover Big Store's whereabouts; it is as 

well known as the Sacred Lake itself. 



^f. B. B. FOWLER, J^ 

130, 132 GLEN ST., 

GLENS FALLS, - - - NEW YORK. 



? Always at Hightide!| 



^'* There is no ehh and flow to'^^ 
^'* this business, as it is constantly *'^ 
Ju f^^ from the springs of Enter- * ^ 
^1^ pjdse, Aggressiveness and Per- ^^ 
^,j severance. Thus we hepp climb- ,,^ 
4|l» ing toward high wateKmarh! ^ 
^i» And each yearns increase s^ows a^ 
<|i* that the current is running inA^ 
4i* the right direction. *i§^ 

4'* Our facilities for doing busi-% 
4'* ness were never better. Having % 
^* Just finished the third floor, we*^^ 
^'* have ample spaceto display our *^^ 
^ magnificent stock of merchan- * ^ 
^1^ disc; and no store in this section ^^ 
Ji, has CO more convenient service ,^ 
4|i» nor better adva^ntages to offer ^^ 
4i» economical shoppers. *!§► 

<§!♦ Twenty -five departments con- *!§► 
4'* tribute to this store's success. ■•!§»• 
I; // Dry-Goods, Cloaks & Millinery% 

^1 with all their accessories, interest you. be sure ,^ 
^' to look for this sign: V 2 ^f o 

J The Boston Store- Co., !!| 

<§|» 139 & 141 Glen St., GLENS FALLS.^ ,\^ 






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